Yet, during an episode described as an uprising and an attempted coup, police made just 61 “riot-related” arrests that day – and only half of them were on Capitol grounds, police chief Robert Contee said. , said last week.
This is certainly valuable context and raises important discussions about police and race, but a longer view shows that the BLM protests were just one example where the police in the capital of the country seem ready to respond with the full force of the law .
Here are some examples, according to the numbers:
133 LGBTQ Activists, October 8, 2019
Just across First Street from the Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court would hear arguments in three cases that, according to many gay rights advocates, would determine the level of protection they would receive under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the provisions of Title VII.
Activists sat in First Street in an act of civil disobedience, reports the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ newspaper that quoted U.S. Capitol police as saying the protesters were charged with repression, obstruction and detention.
147 protesters against climate change, 10 January 2020
Actor Jane Fonda’s ‘fire drill Fridays’ yielded numerous arrests – many of them well-known – in late 2019 and early 2020, as the ex-wife of CNN founder Ted Turner took her anger over climate change to the capital.
In the 14th week of protests, Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen were among the stars detained as Capitol police confirmed that numerous people were charged with repression, obstruction or undercover.
181 Supporters of Obamacare, September 25, 2017
When the IDP started to break down tthe Affordable Care Act in the summer of 2017, protests erupted week after week in the capital, causing several days of arrests. On two separate days in July, Capitol police confirmed that CNN officers arrested 80 and then 155 protesters who entered the halls of Congress to enter peaceful protests – sit-in, sang, lay on the ground and the more.
However, the biggest single-day arrest of the protesters took place in September when protesters – many of whom, according to Reuters, were in wheelchairs (most of them were a group for the disabled) – delayed the Senate hearing. Capitol police began massacring them.
Fifteen have been charged with the disruption of Congress and 166 of the tribulation, disruption or stay, 23 of those facing an additional charge of resisting arrest are charged according to Capitol police.
217 Trump Inauguration Protesters, January 20, 2017
As protests erupted across the country, police in the country’s capital dealt with ugly street clashes between police and antifa in downtown Washington.
Six officers were injured, and police deployed pepper spray after CNN reported that chaos broke out in 12th and K streets when black-clad ‘anti-fascist’ protesters smashed shop windows and bus stops, knocked through the windows of a limousine and finally launched rocks. at a phalanx of police in an eastern crosswalk. Officers responded by letting smoke and lightning devices, which could be heard from blocks, into the street to disperse the crowds. “
302 Brett Kavanaugh Opponents, October 4, 2018
Several days of protests over Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in hundreds of arrests, but many of them occurred in one day when lawmakers reviewed a report by the FBI outlining the allegations against future justice.
It was another star-studded case, as comedian Amy Schumer and model Emily Ratajkowski were among those arrested.
The arrests began in the afternoon with 293 people arrested for illegal protest in a Senate building and nine more later arrested in another Senate building, a Capitol police spokesman said. All were charged with conspiracy, obstruction or stay, the department said.
316 Black Lives Matter protesters, June 1, 2020
Many people asked on Wednesday: Where are the police and army?
No one asked such questions in June, when protesters from Black Lives Matter condemning the deaths of George Floyd and other African-Americans by the police took to the streets to find military helicopters over the city, troops of the national guard who patrolling the streets and tear gas filling the air.
An analysis of data from the Metropolitan Police Department shows that local police arrested five times as many people during the Floyd protests as during last week’s uprising.
372 Protesters of the Keystone Pipeline, March 2, 2014
As President Barack Obama’s government reviewed plans for the $ 5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline, nearly 1,000 protesters from Georgetown University moved to the home of Secretary of State John Kerry and then to the White House, where they acted a “human oil spill”.
Other protesters tied their hands to the White House fence and laid on sails in front of the White House, urging Obama to reject the project. Finally, Lelani Woods, a spokeswoman for the US Park Police, told The Washington Post that 372 people had been arrested.
400+ ‘Democracy Spring’ activists, 11 April 2016
It started in Philadelphia with protesters from various groups marching 150 miles south to set up a sit-up on the Capitol Stairs, influencing big money on politics and Congress’s refusal to turn it around. times, denounced. In a single day of the long protests, Capitol police arrested more than 400 people for ‘illegal protests’, and they were charged with conspiracy, obstruction and stay.
While the Progressive Change Campaign Committee described the protests as ‘non-violent civil disobedience’, aimed at starting talks on ‘important democracy issues’, numerous media outlets reported more than 900 arrests during the protests. Salon set the final score at 1,240 over a week of protests.
575 Immigrant Policy Protesters, 28 June 2018
More than 1,000 women marched through Washington protesting against the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Rep. Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal was among the hundreds arrested, according to Capitol police.
The protests were largely peaceful. Protesters barely quarreled with the officers who arrested them, who in most cases did not even want to use handcuffs to arrest the women. Several Democratic lawmakers – including Senator Tammy Duckworth, who arrived with her baby on tow – showed up to show their support for the demonstration.
12 000+ Opponents of Vietnam War, May 1, 1971
It is not officially included in this list. This is not the most beautiful comparison, as half a century has passed and that the country looks different than in 1971. But the first day of protests against the war in Vietnam is described as the “biggest mass arrest” and “largest mass acquittal” of protesters in US history.
Five thousand police, backed by 1,400 National Guardsmen, greeted the 35,000 protesters that day in Washington, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Anyone and everyone who looked freaky … was kicked off the street,” a protester said in an ACLU article. A federal court later agreed, saying: ‘The innocent as well as the culprits were swept off the streets in large numbers and placed in detention facilities. ‘
An ACLU victory led to acquittal for almost all the protesters, enabling them to collect monetary damages for their abuse, the civil rights group said.
CNN’s Casey Tolan, Gregory Krieg, Leah Asmelash, Sophie Tatum and Mary Grace Lucas contributed to this report.
