Vinayak Barot
NEW DELHI, Jan 7: In an unprecedented violence in the United States’ Capitol building, four persons including a woman were killed in police firing when the supporters of the outgoing president Donald Trump attempted to storm into the building as the House was proceeding with certification of the results of the Presidential electoral college. The police also arrested 52 persons in connection with the violence.
Thousands of Trump supporters had gathered at a rally at the prompting of the outgoing president who has so far refused to accept the verdict of the November 3 presidential elections that showed victory by 306 to 232 Electoral College votes in favour of Joe Biden who is supposed to take over from Trump on January 20.
The chaos in the US Capitol on Wednesday unfolded after Trump spent weeks whipping up his supporters with allegations of fraud in the presidential elections and gave the Republicans a call to gather “in numbers” in Washington to march to the Capital building on January 6 when the US House of Representatives and Senate were scheduled to certify the results of the Electoral College.
Wednesday’s events were the culmination of those efforts by Trump to denounce the results of the elections that he kept claiming “explosion of bullshit” and “stealing the democracy.” About 50 minutes into the speech Trump was making with the White House as the backdrop, some of his supporters, waving Trump flags, began heading toward Capitol Hill, where unprecedented mayhem ensued.
Protesters fought through police barricades, stormed the building and entered lawmakers’ chambers. The certification process was stopped and Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress were evacuated. As night fell, a Capitol official said the building had been cleared, but outside some way from the grounds, scores of protesters remained, including members of militia and far-right groups.
The Washington DC Police Chief Robert Contee said, “The dead on Wednesday included a woman who was shot by the US Capitol Police, as well as three others who died in medical emergencies.”
Trump supporters had occupied the building and deployed the chemical irritants for long hours. It was cleared by the law enforcement agencies on Wednesday evening, Police said in a statement.
The police said the woman was shot earlier Wednesday as the mob tried to break through a barricaded door in the Capitol where police were armed on the other side. She was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and later died.
By Wednesday night, both houses of Congress resumed their debate on the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win and it quickly became clear that objections from pro-Trump Republican lawmakers to Biden’s victory in battleground states would be rejected overwhelmingly including by most Republicans.
According to the Police statement – 14 police officers were also injured in unexpected violence at the US Capitol building. The Washing DC police also claimed to have found two pipe bombs, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee offices.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has announced that the city’s state of emergency would be extended for 15 days. “I know that I speak for all of us when I say that we saw an unprecedented attack on our American democracy incited by the United States President and he must be held accountable.”
Democrats and some Republicans blamed Trump for inciting the violence on Wednesday. “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump,” Jim Mattis, a former defense secretary under Trump, said in a statement.
As criticism mounted that he had incited a riot, Trump was urged to say more by a Trump stalwart, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, and some of the advisers who remain in the White House for his dwindling days in office.
Biden had come out forcefully on live television and said the violence was “not a protest, it’s insurrection.” He called on Trump to demand “an end to this siege.”
Eventually, Trump posted a recorded video on Twitter.
“I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election,” Trump said, repeating familiar falsehoods. “But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”
He posted another message that called the mob “great patriots” who were reacting to an election victory “viciously stripped away.” Twitter later hid three tweets and locked Trump’s account.
Several times Trump also urged Pence to intervene. But while Trump was still speaking, Pence released a lengthy statement saying he would carry out his constitutional duty to certify the vote.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence wrote.
About an hour later he was escorted from the House chamber as a mob tried to break in.
