MAGAs like to claim that January 6 was a "Peaceful Protest that got out of hand" (which is a false claim I debunked in a similar previous diary) but they also say Anti-Police Violence protests over George Floyd were just "Violent Riots."
How does the violence at the Floyd Riots truly compare to the violence and damage that occurred during the Capitol attack? Generally, I would say they are apples and pomegranates but some would say that “obviously” the Floyd protests were worse — however is that really what the cold hard numbers say when you contrast what was actually 8,700 separate events to that one event on January 6?
Let’s see.
About 2000 people entered the Capitol Building after violently fighting with police for almost 90 minutes, using sticks, polls, bear spray, and stolen riot shields - out of a total crowd of about 9000 people. That's 22% of the crowd being violent, attempting to disrupt Congress and deny the electoral count. 3.5 times as many people were non-violent as those who fought the police and entered the building.
[Emptywheel has a post up that uses an estimate of Google Geofence data of people inside and outside the Capitol on Jan 6 subpoenaed by the DOJ and her estimates are that about 4,600 people were inside the building and 23,000 were outside, which still lands us at 20%. Not everyone has a Google phone, plenty of people use iPhones and then not everyone has either — so it’s a pretty broad estimate.]
In the week prior to January 6, there were
453 “Stop the Steal” demonstrations, as well as counter-protests against BLM often with heavily armed Militia members such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Boogaloo Bois who also attended the Capitol Attack. It kept going that way through November and December.
On December 9, police arrested a suspect in Washington State who caused a fire in the building housing the Spokane County Democrats office and who carried a politically-framed manifesto. Women for America, a pro-Trump bus tour, stopped in Ohio for a one-day rally against the 2020 presidential election results. For the second time, between December 12-13, Washington, D.C. saw thousands of demonstrators in a “Million MAGA March” supporting President Trump and allegations of voter fraud, with members of various unlawful paramilitary groups in attendance. Several hundred Black Lives Matter members and anti-fascists groups organized to defend memorials at BLM Plaza, where sporadic confrontation occurred on December 11-12 prior to the rally. The Million MAGA March rally turned violent in the evening as 4 demonstrators, at least one of whom was a member of an unlawful paramilitary group, stabbed. There were also larger brawls, documented incidents of Proud Boys chasing and attacking individuals, 8 police officers injured, and a total of 39 arrests made on Dec 12-13, including at least 11 individuals from outside the District, and from as far away as Maine and Utah. Historic D.C. Black churches were attacked in the evening of December 13, with pro-Trump and unlawful paramilitary members tearing down a Black Lives Matter sign and burning it outside of a nearby bar used as a rallying point.
The “Stop the Steal” rallies were far from violence-free, many of them were contentious with counter-protestors.
28% (125) of “Stop the Steal” demonstrations were met by counter-protesters, or were counter-protests themselves. By comparison, only 8% (218) of all demonstrations since the election involved counter-protests. In the time period from March 4, 2020 through January 20, 2021, just 5% (1,140 of 20,896) of demonstrations involved a counter-protest.
This is helpful background, but what are the numbers of those events that ultimately turned violent? (I’m still collating that since this is an update).
But I do have figures for all the Pro-Trump demonstrations on January 6.
Senate Certification of the Election in Washington D.C. (January 6, 2021): January 6 saw the single most notable spike in events in the post-election period. In conjunction with the Senate certification vote on January 6, “Stop the Steal” and pro-Trump protests took place in capital cities across the U.S. Social media posts and data from CCC and CountLove indicate pro-Trump demonstrations occurred in at least 39 states. On average, demonstrations recorded upwards of 200 protesters, with some cities seeing up to four times that number of attendees. The week of the national certification of the election (January 6-13) recorded an additional spike in counter- protest activity, with 9.4% (33) of all demonstrations recording counter-protestors. In at least 12 states, events prompted evacuations, disrupted business at the capitol or office buildings, or saw crowds threatening or breaching government buildings. In 6 states, Pro-Trump groups engaged in direct threats or some form of violence at events, and in 21 states, demonstrations appear to have remained largely calm. In at least two of these states—Iowa and Kansas—there were permitted demonstrations inside capitol buildings. Some participants in the Iowa events were affiliated with an Iowa state student group accused of inciting violence.
So in addition to the attack on the Capitol, there were other “Stop the Steal” protests on January 6, in 39 states. In 12 of those states (30%) there had to be evacuations because of threats and the potential breach of government buildings. In 6 states (6.5%) there were threats and violence. Demonstrations in 21 states (53%) remained calm and peaceful.
Also, Only 6.5% (574) of Floyd Protest had any violence, vandalism, or looting out of a total of 8,700 events. 93% of the Floyd protests were completely non-violent. 15 times as many protests were non-violent as those where any violence occurred. 15 times as many Floyd protests being non-violent is a 4 times greater ratio than 3.5 times as many Trump protestors being non-violent.
When contrasted with all of the Stop The Steal protests on January 6 — in addition to the Capitol attack — we have 40 events with 21 being non-violent which is 52% compared to 93% of BLM protests being non-violent which is a 78% improvement. Under this view of the other protests, 1.9 times of the Stop the Steal protestors were non-violent compared to those who were violent.
During that period, there were 8,700 protests nationwide; 574 were declared riots with violence and other criminal acts. The violence was limited to 7% of protests, the report said.
In most cases, the criminal acts were the work of individuals or small groups that infiltrated larger demonstrations, according to the organization.
Trump wanted to send in the Military to "Crack Skulls", "Beat the fuck out of [them]" and "Shoot them" to stop the Floyd Protests.
“Trump told his team that he wanted the military to go in and ‘beat the f*** out’ of the protesters. ‘Just shoot them,’” the book titled, Frankly, We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, alleges.
When Mr Trump purportedly received pushback from officials within the administration on his violent stance, he allegedly said: “Well, shoot them in the leg – or maybe the foot… But be hard on them!”
He actually did send Federal Police to clear Layfayette Park in DC using flashbangs, tear gas and pepper balls - even though that crowd was totally non-violent and didn't fight with police. [Although, there had been some vandalism and fires set the previous night.]
"I see guys in camo," O'Shea said. "Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s***. I don't know who you are or what you want with us.'"
Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.
Mr. Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m., after the riot was under way: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” That was a reference to the vice president’s refusal to block the certification of President Biden’s election win in the joint session of Congress that day.
He didn't call MPD or Capitol Police, he didn't call the FBI, he didn't call Homeland Security, he didn't call the Pentagon and ask for the National Guard. [His previous mention of having "10,000 National Guard ready" was only a suggestion -not an order according to the testimony by Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller. The Mayor and Miller had already decided to only have Guard Troops available to manage traffic. Nancy Pelosi had nothing to do with that decision, and she had no authority to make that choice.]
“On January 6th, the Speaker, a target of an assassination attempt that day, was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was. This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi told The Associated Press in an email.
The decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol is made by what is known as the Capitol Police Board, which is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.
After saying "Peacefully" once and "Fight", "Fighting" or “Fight like Hell” 20 times as the attack happened [not to mention “Trial by Combat” by others]. - Trump. did. nothing. as the violence exploded.
She said, “President Trump used the word ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’ 20 times, including telling the crowd they needed to ‘fight like hell.'”
Choking back emotion, she said, “So they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon. And at 2:30, I heard that terrifying banging on House chamber doors. For the first time in more than 200 years, the seat of our government was ransacked on our watch.”
During the Floyd protests people were trying to change US police policy to be less violent and deadly against unarmed suspects. Some people (on Fox News) argued that George Floyd died of fentanyl poisoning, but all three forensic experts at trial testified that it was from chest compression by the three cops kneeling on his back and neck. Plus fentanyl puts you into a coma before it kills you and Floyd was conscious and begging for his life until almost his last breath.
The large growth of the United States’ criminal legal system in the late 20th century brought a widening racial gap in incarceration.1 By the year 2000, Black people made up almost half of the state prison population but only about 13% of the U.S.2 population. And although a wave of changes to sentencing and corrections policies over the past two decades has helped lessen disparities in federal and state prisons, Black adults still were imprisoned in 2020 at five times the rate for White adults.
During the Capitol attack, people wanted to block Congress from doing their duty to certify the election results and deny Democracy under the false impression that the "election was stolen" when it wasn't. Even if the election *had* been stolen the fake electors' plot and the assault on the Capitol were still an illegal Insurrection against Democracy and the power of the vote.
A viral video that purports to show about 80 “ballots,” all for Donald Trump, being burned is fake, Virginia Beach city officials say.
The video, which surfaced on Tuesday, features a man with a plastic bag full of papers that look like ballots, which he doused with a flammable liquid and set aflame. The person, whose face is never shown, claims the 80 false “ballots” are “all for President Trump” on the video. Though the location is not discussed on the video, the races on the papers are from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
However, the ballots are not real. The city of Virginia Beach said the papers are clearly sample ballots, rather than official ballots, since they lack the “bar code markings that are on all official ballots,” according to a statement released on Tuesday afternoon. The statement showed an official ballot and compared it to a screenshot of the false video.
The entire "stolen election" is a hoax.
One of these goals is legal and Constitutional, the other is not.
At the Floyd protests people brought themselves, although some wore helmets, shields, threw rocks and set trash cans on fire. A few set buildings on fire and looted. At the Capitol attack, they brought poles, sticks, spears, and flags they used to beat up police. They brought pepper and bear spray, they wore helmets, flack jackets, stole shields, vandalized the building, smeared feces on the walls, hunted for law makers to assault/arrest/kidnap/kill or rape, had walkie talkies, brought hand guns, long guns and Zip Ties.
A member of the Oath Keepers who traveled with the group to Washington D.C. ahead of the Jan. 6 riot described a massive stockpile of firearms and other weaponry that allies had stashed in an Arlington, Va. hotel.
“I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” recalled Terry Cummings, a Florida resident who said he joined the Oath Keepers in 2020 amid concerns about left-wing violence in Portland, Ore. and joined the group leaders’ private chats in advance of their Jan. 6 trip to D.C.
Even if we agree the majority on both sides came without weapons and were peaceful - nobody with handguns, bear spray and zip ties is coming to a peaceful protest.
The damage done by the Pro-Floyd Riots is estimated at $2 Billion which averages to $3.5 Million for 574 events. If you average it by the number of protests (8,700) it goes down to $228,885 in damage per protest. The Capitol Riot did $1.5 Million [that estimate was later upgraded to $2.7 Million] in damage - so that's 11.7 times more damage than the average Floyd protest, but about 77% of the damage done during the average Floyd riot.
Federal authorities raised their estimate of property damage due to the January 6 Capitol riot to $2.73 million, according to a Friday
court filing in the case of a man who pleaded guilty to participating in the riot, which left
windows broken, doors splintered and paintings
stained with pepper spray and tear gas.
The MAGA also like to claim that all the violent people at the Capitol were really “Antifa” in disguise, except that no one from Antifa has been identified in any video or has been arrested for participating in the attack. Most who’ve been arrested have openly a
dmitted that they are Trump supporters.
In those 24 hours, the lie that the rioters were actually antifa
was mentioned more than 400,000 times online. It
peaked on the anonymous imageboard site 4chan around 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to the Social Media Analysis Toolkit, which is
around the same time that the barriers at the Capitol were breached. Then the sowing of doubt spread further: first on Parler and Twitter, then on Reddit, then on Fox News and in the halls of Congress.
There was no evidence for these claims then, and there still isn't any now. Shortly after the riot, the FBI
directly refuted the conspiracy theory, saying there is "no indication" that antifa — a decentralized collection of far-left groups and individuals — was involved. To date, no one who has since been charged in the attack appears to have any connection to the anti-fascist movement either.
[...]
In fact, some rioters seemed annoyed that antifa was getting the credit for the Capitol attack, and they took to social media to say so.
"Listen up: I hear so many reports of 'Antifa' was storming the capital [sic] building. Know that every single person who believes that narrative have been DUPED AGAIN!" Ryan Taylor Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran charged in the attack, posted on Facebook on Jan. 7, according to court documents. "Sure, there may have been some 'Antifa' in DC, but there wasn't enough to 'Storm the Capital' [sic] themselves."
Court documents show another man charged in the riot, Brandon Straka, wrote on Twitter on Jan. 6: "It was not Antifa at the Capitol. It was freedom loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the final hope of our Republic."
Straka, who testified to the January 6 committee after speaking at the “Stop the Steal” rally has now become the subject of even more MAGA Conspiracy theories.
On the other side though, the allegation that many of those who became violent during the Floyd riots were “outside agitators” actually has legs. Many of them were Boogaloo Bois.
Members of a shadowy movement known as the Boogaloo Boys have been implicated in a series of violent protests and the distribution of misinformation regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus and in violent racial protests in a number of cities in the U.S. [...]
In a report made public on June 17, 2020, Blackbird.AI traces these activities including the armed mob that protested at the Michigan statehouse on May 1, 2020, and the subsequent flood of disinformation to the Boogaloo Boys.
“In the lead-up to these protests and others like it across many other states around the country, there was significant online inflammation of what was characterized as the government's unusual and overbearing reach into private lives in the form of closing down cities and businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report says.
[...]
According to Blackbird, traffic on one of the Boogaloo movement’s prime social network boards, 4Chan, exploded immediately after the death of a black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis.
In fact, the armed man who had accompanied Kyle Rittenhouse before his shooting spree — Ryan Balch —
was a Boogaloo.
2000 Police were injured during the 8,700 Floyd Protests, that's an average of 0.22 officers per event. If you divide it by the number of protests that turned violent (574) the average goes to 3.48 officers injured per riot. Over 140 officers were injured during the Capitol Riot, so by that measure 40 times as many police were injured than during the average Floyd riot.
The physical toll on officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack by a pro-Trump mob is becoming clearer, with reports by police officials and federal prosecutors indicating that about 140 officers were injured, the head of the Capitol Police officers’ union said.
25 People died during the Floyd Protests, however, 9 of those were actually protestors who were killed by Police and Counter-protesters who would shoot them and drive their vehicles into the crowd. 2 of those people were killed by Kyle Rittenhouse.
Nine of the people killed during protests were demonstrators taking part in Black Lives Matter protests. Two were conservatives killed after pro-Trump “patriot rallies”. All but one were killed by fellow citizens.
SAN FRANCISCO — A former U.S. Air Force staff sergeant and alleged member of the "boogaloo" extremist movement pleaded guilty Friday in the fatal shooting of a federal security officer in the San Francisco Bay Area amid large 2020 protests against police brutality.
So really the violent protestors killed 14 people and the police, counter-protestors, Rittenhouse and Boogaloos killed 11 people.
As a result of the Capitol Attack, a total of 9 people died. Ashley Babbit was shot by police for trespassing and threatening the safety of Congress people trapped in the House Chamber. One woman among the crowd was trampled to death by the rioters. Another man had a heart attack. Police Officer Brian Sicknick died from a stroke the very next day where the Medical Examiner stated it was the result of "all that transpired" including the attack. Another protestor died, and then 4 different police officers committed suicide because of the stress and trauma they experienced in the attack.
Summary:
So the rate of violence (22%) was 3x higher with the Capitol Attack than it was with the Floyd Protests (6.5%). When you Include other Pro-Trump protests that day in 39 states — 21 of those (53%) were peaceful while another 12 (30%) had a potential breach of a government building and 6 (6.5%) had threats and violence.
Trump didn't respond at all to the violence of the Capitol Attack, but he did use Force and Secret Police tactics against Floyd Protestors - plus he wanted to use the Military to "Shoot them" down in the street but the Joint Chiefs refused.
The Pro-Floyd protestors had a legitimate documented concern over police bias and abuse to complain about. [A problem which remains unresolved]
The average Floyd Protest only did a fraction (1/6th) of the damage done at the Capitol, but the average Floyd Riot did about 22% more property damage as what occurred at the Capitol.
40 times as many officers were injured at the Capitol Riot than at the average violent Floyd Riot. And that increases to 611 times as many when compared to the average Floyd Protest.
And while Pro-Floyd rioters ultimately killed 14 people - Pro-Trump violence killed 11 people during the protests, then they were responsible for the deaths of another 8 people at the Capitol plus Ashley Babbit.
Punishment for the protests has been largely proportional to the size and number of those protests and the crimes and damages committed. However, most of the Floyd rioters were prosecuted for State crimes while those at the Capitol were prosecuted for Federal Crimes (because it happened on Federal property).
But somehow some people can't imagine or agree with the idea that Pro-Floyd events were *Mostly* non-violent protests or that the Pro-Trump attack on the Capital was an even greater "violent riot" and a deadly Insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power?
I think those people are kidding themselves. Both series of events had many peaceful people, and they had violent people.
As a percentage, the Pro-Trumpers were *more* violent, particularly against people and the police, than those who were Pro-Floyd which on average did more damage to property.
Trump needed the violence to happen, he needed to intimidate Mike Pence to go along with the John Eastman plan or else to flee the building in terror allowing Chuck Grassley to take his place and implement the plan to remain in the White House. Trump picked the date, place and time for the rally -- and then he specifically sent the crowd to the Capitol even though they didn't have a permit for that because they didn't provide appropriate security for it.
None of this was "spontaneous," Trump lit the fire and then let it burn on purpose. Compare that to 8,700 spontaneous protests - where nobody had any plans in advance - that were 93% non-violent even with a few hundred "flare-ups" of violent people taking advantage of the chaos to mostly do property damage, none of that violence helped the goal - police reform - which was what the BLM protests were actually about.
[As noted in the comments, there were additional Pro-Trump protests beyond the Capitol Attack just prior and on Jan 6 which were non-violent held at the State Houses of various States.]
Supporters of outgoing Republican President Donald Trump are protesting at statehouses across the U.S. on Wednesday amid a violent riot on Capitol Hill.
The protests come after Trump rallied supporters against the counting of Electoral College votes that will confirm Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Trump has for months falsely claimed the election was rigged through widespread voter fraud, a claim that is baseless.
Protestors have gathered at statehouses in Washington, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Texas and other states. [...]
“They showed up at their scheduled permit time, they had their rally, it was peaceful, nobody went where they weren’t supposed to be, nothing was done out of the ordinary and they left on time,” Don Hughes, a public information officer for the Kansas Highway Patrol, told CNBC.
Trump supporters and members of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys rioted outside the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday, clashing with Black Lives Matter protestors, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Hundreds of Trump supporters protested outside the Michigan State Capitol on Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press reported. The demonstrations have been peaceful, Michigan State Police said.
[Unfortunately, even this report doesn’t give details on the size of these protests or even their total number so I can’t yet quantify their impact in contrast to the Capitol Riot itself, but they were mostly non-violent, except for the Riot in Ohio — so that's something. My suspicion is that these were pretty small with perhaps only a few hundred participants each and wouldn’t really change my figures and estimates much. If I were to include all this, I would also have to include the 2 previous DC rallies for Trump which had occurred in November and in December which were both incredibly violent with a stabbing and brutal fights with Antifa in the streets. It was in December the Proud Boys leader Enrico Tarrio burned and desecreted a Black Live Matter sign in front of a church leading to charges that kept him from participating in January 6, but many of the Proud Boys who were with him were able to attend and did lead the attack against the Capitol.
[Ok, I’ve been provided the additional info about other Jan 6 protests and I've included that data.]
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