Too close to home: Locals weigh in on Capitol riot
By:
Keeley Meier, staff writer
Photo courtesy of Rep. Dusty Johnson
Havoc was wreaked on the Nation’s Capitol last week when protests elevated to riot status, postponing the confirmation of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States into the early morning hours of Jan. 7.
“We’ve got to shut the TV off—the chief is getting too upset.”
This is what Police Chief Joe Weir remembers hearing from Lieutenant Jamie Steffel on Jan. 6 when the TV in their squad room brought news of the Capitol siege.
The siege started that day around 1 p.m. when a group of rioters made their way to the Capitol where lawmakers were counting electoral votes to confirm the election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.
Many of the rioters came from President Trump’s “Save America Rally” that began just a few hours prior to the siege. After speaking for more than an hour, Trump encouraged his supporters to make their way to the Capitol.
“And after this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down ... to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” Trump proclaimed at the rally.
By 1:26 p.m., Capitol police had ordered the evacuation of the Library of Congress, Madison Building and Cannon House Office Building across from the Capitol. By 2:11 p.m., rioters had breached police lines and began scaling the walls of the Capitol.
Just 10 minutes later, Vice President Pence was whisked from the Senate chamber. At 2:39 p.m., photographs emerged of rioters breaking Capitol windows, and five minutes later, fired shots were reported in the House chamber. By 3:03 p.m., rioters had reached the Senate floor. At 3:13, Trump called for peace and no violence, and at 3:51 p.m. the National Guard was mobilized.
4:17 p.m.: Trump tweets out a video where he says, “I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. ... So, go home. We love you, you’re very special. ... I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”
Finally, at 8 p.m., Congress reconvened to resume counting the Electoral College votes. Early Thursday morning, it was confirmed that Joe Biden would be the United States’ 46th president.
Five people died due to the siege, including a Capitol police officer, and so far, around 68 people have been arrested.
Hitting too close to home
When news of the events reached the Brandon Police Station on Wednesday, Weir said he was stunned. Shocked. Disgusted. Frustrated.
“I view the Capitol as the heart and soul of our country,” Weir said. “To strike out at that building or the occupants of that building, it seems treasonous to me.”
Weir doesn’t just speak as the police chief of a small Midwest city; Weir served over 24 years with the FBI. He had two separate stints in Washington, D.C. at FBI Headquarters where he served as Deputy Unit Chief of FBI police.
Weir said he used to work closely with the Capitol police and that watching Wednesday’s footage was difficult.
“I put myself in the position of those Capitol police officers that were running for their lives while still trying to protect the thing they’ve sworn to protect,” Weir said. “I can’t imagine the spot they must have been in.”
There’s one moment of footage during the siege that sticks out to him.
“There’s one officer that runs up the steps because he’s fleeing the crowd, then he turns around with his baton and is trying to wave them back and is obviously just trying to keep them at bay—much like I would swat at a fly,” Weir said. “I can’t put into words how frustrating it was for me to watch. It was a very bad moment.”
Predicting the unpredictable
‘They should have seen it coming.’
‘They should have been prepared.’
Statements like these having been circulating on social media in the days since the riot, implying that the Capitol police, the D.C. police and the government officials should have predicted a riot like this to occur.
Weir says it’s not that simple.
“When you think about the frequency and number of protests and demonstrations that occur in Washington, D.C., I mean, there are a lot,” he said. “You live in the Midwest, and you just don’t think of it, but it’s astonishing. And everyone likes to say, ‘Well, they should have known.’ Do you know how many protests there are every year? These things are always built up, and there’s always chatter on the Internet that, in retrospect, makes it sound like they should have known.”
First, Weir says, by pure numbers, the mob of people overwhelmed the security personnel. Even without exhibiting violence, the sheer mass of people was just too much, the chief said. Additionally, he says, the Capitol building was built decades ago without consideration of modern security processes, so there are countless points of entry.
Another point to consider, Weir says, is that those in charge must decide carefully how to approach a situation such as this.
“No one could anticipate what happened, and if they would’ve anticipated it, they would’ve been ridiculed for trying to squelch free speech and right to assemble—founding principles of our country,” Weir said. “So, law enforcement and executive leaders walk this line of trying to maintain security while not obstructing or appearing to obstruct or limit free speech and people’s right to assembly.”
“I strongly believe in free speech and the right to assemble,” Weir continued. “However, what I observed went unquestionably beyond such.”
Impossible to comprehend
Weir said he experienced a myriad of emotions watching the rioters break windows of the Capitol and climb up the scaffolding, but the underlying emotion was confusion.
“I don’t understand how someone’s anger and passion — unbridled passion — could lead to such acts,” Weir said, shaking his head. “Let’s step back and be cerebral about our concerns. Unbridled response to your concern invalidates your argument.”
And for Weir, this unbridled response of violence made Jan. 6 a dark day in our country.
“Violence is not the medicine for perceived illness of government,” Weir said. “Whether the illness is legitimate or not, the medication for that is not violence.”
The violence that Weir, along with the rest of the country, witnessed on Wednesday was unprecedented. However, comments made by Trump at the rally before the Capitol riot led him to question whether Trump was the primary instigator of the siege.
“Not only did [Trump] not condemn [the violence], but I’m not so sure he didn’t poke the bear,” Weir said. “It’s not for me and my position to address politics. Certainly, the verbiage that was used at the protest before they proceeded to the Capitol was concerning, and the wording was such that it seemed—and not as a police chief but as a human being watching it—almost encouraging, up to and in that gray area—that I’d like to think a leader wouldn’t do.”
Despite the destruction to the Capitol and the deaths that occurred, Weir says he is thankful for the officers on duty that day.
“I just want to say that the officers that put themselves in harm’s way to protect others did so with honor, and they deserve our gratitude and support,” Weir said. “This only exemplifies what they do every day.”
Former Senate page weighs in
Kate Lundberg has also spent her fair share of time in the Capitol building, so when news broke on Wednesday of the riot taking place, it felt too surreal for her.
“Working in the Capitol, I knew those hallways, I’m familiar with the rooms,” Lundberg said. “I experienced the excitement of walking onto the Senate floor each morning while I worked as a page, so I learned how sacred and hallowed each piece is in the building.”
In 2018, before her senior year at Brandon Valley High School, Lundberg served as a Senate page in the Capitol building—setting up senators’ desks and podiums, making roll call runs, fetching water, delivering bills and watching debates.
Lundberg has kept her dream of working in the government close to her heart and is now a sophomore at George Washington University in D.C. She’s studying International Affairs with a minor in political science. Lundberg has been taking online classes from home in Brandon for the school year due to COVID but says she is still fully involved with her university.
“We [still] get alerts from GW, so I had been getting notifications for a couple days [before] and even back in November during the election—to get supplies and stuff—because our campus is just a few blocks from the White House,” Lundberg said.
There are still some students with special circumstances on the campus, so Lundberg said these alerts are not new; they stretch back to the summer protests and unrest.
“We got them through the summer when the protests were going on outside the White House to be cautious of certain areas, or if there was violence happening to avoid certain streets, especially during the November election,” Lundberg said. “We got alerts like, ‘Make sure your doors are locked; stock up on food in case you aren’t able to leave.’”
Lundberg said students were warned ahead of Jan. 6 that some protests could occur, but she never imagined that it would reach the level it did.
“Even when I was a page, we were told about events like this, and we had to go through training and prepare for something like this, but it’s not something any of us thought we would actually witness,” Lundberg said.
Lundberg said she spent all of Wednesday watching the news while FaceTiming her college roommate. While watching, she said she saw footage of friends and people she knew from her time as a page who were carrying the electoral votes. Fortunately, her friends in the Capitol were not harmed.
Despite the destruction she was witnessing, Lundberg said she didn’t want to turn the news off.
“When there was the footage of stuff being destroyed in the Capitol, I knew exactly where the hallway was or where that broken glass came from,” Lundberg said. “I had held open those doors that the protesters were hanging above.”
For Lundberg, the Capitol siege is something that was fueled by division.
“It’s been easy for political division to write things off as the right or the left for months, but I know that both sides of the aisle make everything possible,” Lundberg said. “That’s why America is America.”
After witnessing how the senators and congress people returned to work that night in the Capitol after the protests started to cease, Lundberg remains hopeful.
“Working in the government has been my dream for as long as I can remember, and I’ve learned throughout what I have done how special of a place it all is, and I don’t think that will ever change for me.”
However, this coup will not be just a fleeting moment in time for Lundberg—not just a distant memory.
“It’s easy to get wrapped up in the divisiveness of today’s political world, but I did see the genuine attitude of senators while I was working there of their responsibility to the American people,” Lundberg said. “To me, this was a tragedy that will undeniably be something I remember forever, and I think everyone will.”
A lasting memory
Weir says he doesn’t know what the future holds and that what happened was shocking. After watching the news for a while with his officers, he had to walk away. And later that night, after continuing to watch the news with his wife, he said he had to go to bed to try to quell the frustration building inside of him.
“Like I said before, the protestors’ unbridled passion that led to violence and anarchy is just unacceptable to me,” Weir said. “The attack on the Capitol and its occupants is, to me, an act of treason. I hope that we don’t experience anything like this again.”
