Around the time that the process of officially confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s win got underway in D.C., unhinged Trump supporters began to violently confront police officers who were stationed outside of the Capitol building, apparently attempting to force their way into the building. Right-wingers have used this tactic before — in Michigan, amidst deranged protests against COVID-19 restrictions, armed demonstrators stormed the state capitol building. Later, when the members of the electoral college for Michigan gathered in that same building, state authorities locked down the state capitol complex in the face of what one top legislator’s spokeswoman called “credible threats of violence.” This chaos is what Trump and his enablers have wrought in the United States.
The president sent a mob to Capitol Hill, now buildings are being evacuated and elected lawmakers are sheltering in their offices. https://t.co/drN7LvNKV5
— Todd Zwillich (@toddzwillich) January 6, 2021
Check out D.C. footage below:
This is WILD pic.twitter.com/dC8whGzIgw
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 6, 2021
UPDATE: Violent Trump supporters breached the Capitol building on Wednesday, forcing both chambers of Congress to abruptly halt their proceedings. Check out disturbing footage below:
"Protesters are in the building" — the Senate is abrupt brought into recess pic.twitter.com/33m8Sht4Sm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021
It took 159 years, but a mob marching behind a confederate flag has stormed the US Capitol. They are doing so on @realDonaldTrump’s express orders. pic.twitter.com/Q9MnbT0emZ
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) January 6, 2021
Trump protesters just discharged a fire extinguisher outside Senate chamber. Many protesters are inside building, and most people are hiding from them pic.twitter.com/0y2sk8LHWd
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) January 6, 2021
The Capitol is literally being broken into.
We’re under siege. pic.twitter.com/HW5bxbyr0h
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 6, 2021
According to reports, evacuations unfolded across the Capitol complex as Trump’s violent and cultish supporters swarmed outside. The Cannon House Office Building, Madison building, and private residences in the area were all subject to sudden evacuations on Wednesday, although at least one of the evacuation efforts shifted to a “shelter in place” directive. Besides the threat posed by the violent Trump-supporting mob, White House reporter Alayna Treene, who was at the Cannon building when the evacuation began, said that a Capitol police officer said that a “few unidentified packages” had been uncovered. At 1:45 P.M. local time, Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D) added that she was “sheltering in place” in her D.C. office.
Everyone is being evacuated from Cannon as well (me included). I spoke w/ a Capitol police officer on my way out who told me a few unidentified packages have been found. He wouldn’t tell me anything else. https://t.co/qWleoYtx8L
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 6, 2021
I’m sheltering in place in my office. The building next door has been evacuated. I can’t believe I have to write this.
— Rep. Haley Stevens (@RepHaleyStevens) January 6, 2021
Meanwhile, police officers on scene at the Capitol building in D.C. appear to have deployed tear gas against the violent Trump-supporting agitators. Around the same time, Trump demonstrators around the Michigan capitol placed a giant cross in the area, as if they imagined that their presence heralded the creation of some kind of theocracy in the United States. Trump’s commitment to his self-serving ideology has long since taken on a sort of cultish feel. Documented reality means little to him as he pushes deranged lies to his eager followers — some of whom, based on footage and reports from D.C., appear keen on acting according to the president’s delusional ideas.
Check out footage of the apparent tear gas — and bizarrely placed giant cross — below:
Capitol Police are now firing tear gas into the crowd. pic.twitter.com/T0ToS93oyn
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) January 6, 2021
They just put up a cross in front of the capitol building pic.twitter.com/0LrGQ5zj9e
— Anna Timmer (@VeritasSola) January 6, 2021