Top Dem vows probe after cops arrest just 52 MAGA rioters

An Ohio congressman charged with funding the Capitol Police vowed Wednesday to launch an investigation into how hundreds of President Trump supporters were able to storm U.S. Capitol buildings and run riot.

Rep. Tim Ryan said that he believed there were some ‘strategic mistakes from the very beginning’ after videos emerged on social media that appeared to show officers taking aside barriers for demonstrators and even taking selfies with them.

He promised that Capitol Police would face imminent firings for the ’embarrassment’ that was their response to the ‘attempted coup’.  

‘I think it’s pretty clear that there’s going to be a number of people who are going to be without employment very, very soon,’ Ryan said, ‘because this is an embarrassment — both on behalf of the mob and the president, and the insurrection and the attempted coup, but also the lack of professional planning and dealing with what we knew was going to occur.’

‘You can bet your a** that we’re going to get to the bottom of it,’ the Ohio Democrat added.

The lack of police presence as thousands of Trump loyalists descended on D.C. on Wednesday has been questioned – as has the response from law enforcement, who has been accused of using more heavy-handed tactics with Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer.

At least 52 people were arrested Wednesday after hundreds violently broke their way into the Capitol and four people died, causing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to enforce a curfew from 6pm.

In comparison, there were 289 arrests made by the Metropolitan Police Department for curfew violations, riot-related burglary, and other riot-related events on June 1 alone. 

On this day, the U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops had used tear gas on peaceful protesters to clear the way for a Trump photo-op outside of St John’s Church sparking fury.  

‘If black people were storming the Capitol, they would have been treated so much differently than they were today,’ Ryan said. 

‘I don’t think there’s any question that communities of color would have been handled much, much differently.’ 

Mayor Bowser on Wednesday night deployed the MPD to assist Capitol Police to secure Capitol buildings, which is federal ground, after it was requested assistance. 

It was also revealed that Vice President Mike Pence, and not Trump, had ordered to fully activate the D.C. National Guard to help in clearing the area as the president was accused of inciting the violence and calling on his followers to descend on the Capitol. 

And New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also stepped in to deploy 1,000 members of the New York National Guard to D.C. ‘to aid and facilitate the peaceful transition of presidential power’.

It came as a former D.C. police chief fumed that all those who broke into the building should be ‘face down in handcuffs right now’ as footage emerged of them walking freely from the building with a police escort.

Charles Ramsey, who led the Metropolitan Police Department from 1998 to 2007, told CNN that officers had to ‘regain control’ and ‘take action’ to secure the area after supporters stormed the building and violently clashed with police in a bid to stop Joe Biden’s victory being certified.

The raid was the first time the Capitol has been breached since the British burned the building in August 1814, according to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

‘There’s no way they should have gotten into that building in my opinion, but we’ll look into that later that’s kind of like the hogwash after the event,’ Ramsey said to CNN on Wednesday evening.

‘Right now, they’ve got to retake the capitol and they’re going to have to do it using force.

‘Anybody inside that building as far as I’m concerned ought to be face down in handcuffs right now,’ he added.

‘That’s what they ought to be doing. I don’t know what they’re doing in there, but they need to be locking them up without question.’

Ramsey, who also served as Philly’s top cop from 2008 to 2016 — the longest tenure for a Philly police commander in three decades, claimed that it was vital that the MPD brought the situation back under control and did not allow the group to hunker down before inauguration day.

‘First they’ve got to regain control and right now they don’t have control. They’re going to have to take action,’ he said.

‘There’s chatter on the internet now about occupy DC so I don’t know whether this is part of it or not but they’re going to have to be on high alert. They’re not going to be able to let these people establish camps or anything like that, but their next challenge will be on January 20 on inauguration day but in the meantime these next couple of days are going to be pretty dicey.’

He added that hoped Biden counter protesters would not emerge on Wednesday night so that the rest of the demonstrations could continue more peacefully.

‘I mean these is a mess, so they’d better establish control as soon as possible,’ Ramsey continued.

‘Let me tell you it’s not going to be pretty, they’re going to have to use physical force to get these folks moving and out of there but they’ve got to take back the Capitol there’s no two ways about it.’

Earlier in the show, Ramsey had said that the swarm on the Capitol was ‘unprecedented’ as he called out President Donald Trump for encouraging his followers to descend on D.C. earlier in the day.

‘What I’d want the president to do is shut the hell up and get out of the way. He’s like a cancer,’ he said.

‘This is as close to a coup attempt as this country has ever seen.’

When he served in Philadelphia, Ramsey was known for his tough-on-crime stance and he oversaw a 37 percent decline in the murder rate.

He was tapped by former President Barack Obama to co-chair his Task Force on 21st Century Policing in 2014.

His harsh comments about his former force came as more video footage emerged from Wednesday’s breach and appeared to show officers taking a more lenient approach with the Trump protesters.

Some social media users shared images of the difference in the presence in law enforcement on Wednesday when compared to the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer months when tear gas was used on protesters.

One video which claimed to be from Wednesday showed a clip from a livestream in which a group, some wearing Make America Great Again hats, stood inside an unidentified building and took a selfie with a police officer.

Comments underneath the videos said, ‘Get Pelosi’ and ‘Never Concede’ appearing to come from other Trump supporters encouraging the raid on the Capitol.

Another video that was captured on CNN showed police in riot gears escorting a group down some steps with one holding the hand of a woman in a Trump hat as she made her way down.

The group was being escorted out of the Capitol only after several hours of them roaming around the building’s chambers, hanging off the balconies, posing for pictures inside and coming away with some souvenirs.

Capitol police had detained some protesters outside of the House Chamber, but many were simply escorted away.

And in a third shocking video shared to TikTok, a group of Trump protesters are seen swarming through barriers after a short conversation with officers who then pull the gate aside.

The group is then allowed to join with another group of demonstrators as officers walk away.

‘And they just breached the Capitol again,’ a man commentates over the footage.

Footage from inside Capitol buildings as the protesters first broke through appear to show the cops stationed inside were unprepared with a sole officer facing down a large group of men, trying to keep them back before being forced to run in retreat.

He repeatedly tells them to ‘back up’ as he runs back and tries to keep them from entering further before other officers arrive.

On Wednesday night, the National Guard was deployed to help stem the violence and police are enforcing a 6pm curfew in DC.

Hundreds of protesters remained on the Capitol grounds after the curfew went into effect.

Authorities eventually regained control as night fell.

Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements started using tear gas in a coordinated effort to get people moving toward the door, then combed the halls for stragglers, pushing the mob farther out onto the plaza and lawn, in clouds of tear gas, flash-bangs and percussion grenades.

Video footage also showed officers letting people calmly walk out the doors of the Capitol despite the rioting and vandalism. 

Only about a dozen arrests were made in the hours after authorities regained control. 

They said a woman was shot in the chest inside the building during the chaos, was taken to a hospital and died. Three other deaths were announced later in the day but no details were revealed. 

Early on, some inside the Capitol saw the trouble coming outside the windows. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota surveyed the growing crowd on the grounds not long after Trump had addressed his supporters by the Ellipse, fueling their grievances over an election that he and they say he won, against all evidence.

‘I looked out the windows and could see how outmanned the Capitol Police were,’ Phillips said. 

Under the very risers set up for Biden’s inauguration, Trump supporters clashed with police who blasted pepper spray in an attempt to hold them back.

It didn’t work. Throngs of maskless MAGA-hatted demonstrators tore down metal barricades at the bottom of the Capitol´s steps. Some in the crowd were shouting ‘traitors’ as officers tried to keep them back.  

Yet Congressman Ryan has questioned why it was so easy for them to gain access as more video footage emerges. 

‘I have no idea why that would be permissible,’ he said. ‘That’s unacceptable. … We’ll be looking at all of that.’