Trump’s Capitol Mob Waved Pro-Police Flags, Killed Cop

The raging mob that Donald Trump set loose on the U.S. Capitol waved “thin blue line” flags and wore “Blue Lives Matter” T-shirts. They attacked police with lead pipes and mace, injured 60 police officers, and killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

Reminder: Donald John Trump ran as the Law & Order candidate; instead, he’s unleashed the “American Carnage” he swore to protect us from.

More:

“MAGA Mob Kills Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, Iraq War Veteran Defending Congress From Trump Rioters,” Pilar Melendez, Ana Lucia Murillo, Will Lennon, and Matt Taylor, BuzzFeed News

“Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage,” Marc Santora, Megan Specia and Mike Baker, New York Times

“Capitol Police officer’s death investigated as homicide; Trump’s legal exposure questioned,” Kristine Phillips and Kevin Johnson, USA Today

“Bleeding Capitol cop screams for help as he is crushed against a metal door by MAGA mob that stormed police lines and bludgeoned officers with stolen shields,” Snejana Farberov, Daily Mail

“The Mob at the Capitol Proves That Blue Lives Have Never Mattered to Trump Supporters,” Nathalie Baptiste, Mother Jones

“Rioters breached the Capitol as they waved pro-police flags. Police support on the right may be eroding, experts warn.” Marissa J. Lang and Peter Jamison, Washington Post

Updates:

“‘They Got a Officer!’: How a Mob Dragged and Beat Police at the Capitol,” Evan Hill, Arielle Ray and Dahlia Kozlowsky, New York Times

“FBI, NYPD told Capitol Police about possibility of violence before riot, senior officials say,” Ken Dilanian, Tom Winter, Jonathan Dienst and Andrew Blankstein, NBC News

“Video shows Capitol mob dragging police officer down stairs. One rioter beat the officer with a pole flying the U.S. flag.” Katie Shepherd, Washington Post

“New Video Shows Officer Beaten by Trump Insurrectionists,” TMZ

“Guns, Brass Knuckles, Homemade Napalm: Read Some of the Documents From Arrests After the Capitol Riot,” Andrew Beaujon, Washingtonian

“MAGA Mob Assaulted at Least 139 Cops at Capitol: Prosecutors,” Jamie Ross, Daily Beast

Related:

“Decoding the flags and banners seen at the Capitol Hill insurrection,” By Anne Quito and Amanda Shendruk, Quartz

“Decoding the Far-Right Symbols at the Capitol Riot,” Matthew Rosenberg and Ainara Tiefenthäler, New York Times

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Trump: 7 Shots in the Back is Like a Missed Putt

U.S. President, Commander-in-Chief, and celebrity golf cheat Donald Trump compared the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times last month to a golfer who missed a simple putt:

“They can do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do, and one bad apple – or a choker, you know, a choker, they choke – shooting the guy in the back many times. But they choke, just like in a golf tournament, they miss a 3-foot putt.”

More:

“Trump compares police brutality to golfers who ‘miss a three-foot putt,’” Quint Forgey. Politico

“How to sort the good cops from the rotten: Ask them about Trump’s golf-putt metaphor,” Philip Kennicott, Washington Post

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Hopscotch

On March 30th, Huntington Beach police officers found a mother and daughter living out of their car. While others found them housing, HPD Officer Zach Pricer cajoled the 11-year-old girl into a game of hopscotch.

More:

“Watch a middle-aged cop teach an 11-year-old homeless girl how to play hopscotch,”Jenny Starrs, Washington Post

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Capitol Hill: Small Victory for the People

Kids have a snow day and want to sled on their neighborhood’s only hill. That’s winter in America, right? Wrong, if you’re one of the 600,000 American citizens who lives in the District of Columbia, and the the hill in question is Capitol Hill.

One Capitol Hill neighbor, Eleanor Holmes Norton, asked the Capitol Hill Police to let the kids go sledding on The Hill. You’d think that would count for something, since Ms. Norton is a duly-elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives, elected to 13 terms by DC voters whose federal income taxes help pay the Capitol Police. Nope. But then again the U.S. House of Representatives doesn’t let Ms. Norton vote on behalf of those taxpayers, either.

So sledding on Capitol Hill remains officially forbidden. But do you want to tell that to the neighborhood kids? Neither did the Capitol Hill Police. Kids: “Wheee!“

More:

“Children bravely defy sledding ban on Capitol Hill, because freedom,” German Lopez, Vox

“Heroes Defy Cops, Sled on Capitol Hill,” Daily Beast

“Children Defy Police, Sled On Capitol Hill Grounds,” Matt Cohen, DCist

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Drone Defense

On September 26th, a man in Lower Township, NJ shot down a neighbor’s drone quadcopter that was hovering over his yard and taking photos. Police decided that the small aircraft posed no immediate threat, and arrested the gunman on weapons and criminal mischief charges. Laws about personal drone incursions aren’t clear, so this case may establish precedent.

More:

— “Man Shoots Down Drone, Lawyers Scratch Their Heads,” Kelsey D. Atherton, Popular Science

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Image (“Drone Shooting, after Henry Thomas Alken”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Eric Garner, July 17, 2014.

Who Watches the Watchers? Thieves.

“The high-security building housing Interpol’s South Africa office has been burgled for the fifth time in three weeks.”

— “South Africa: Interpol building raided five times,” BBC News

The International Criminal Police Organization, (INTERPOL) is an intergovernmental organization with 190 member countries facilitating international police cooperation.

 “Our high-tech infrastructure of technical and operational support helps meet the growing challenges of fighting crime in the 21st century.”

— INTERPOL website

 The Pretoria office certainly inspires confidence in that.

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Law & Order in America

If you go to Ferguson Missouri, don’t jaywalk or shoplift cigars. The punishment is summary execution. And don’t sit in your own car in your aunt’s driveway or you’ll be arrested. And police will stop you when you drive or walk away, too.

If you’re black, anyway. And not just in Missouri.

Related:

“Amnesty International Calls For Investigation Of Ferguson Police Tactics,” Mollie Reilly, The Huffington Post

“It’s not just Ferguson: America’s criminal justice system is racist,” Ezra Klein, Vox

“One nation under siege: Law enforcement’s shameful campaign against black America,” Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, Salon

“The ugly history of racist policing in America,” Dara Lind, Vox

“Existing While Black,” Martin Longman, Washington Monthly

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Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.

Stop reading about militarized police, reporter arrests, demonstrations, urban rage, segregated cities and police forces for a minute, and read this:

“Michael Brown didn’t die in the dark. He was eighteen years old, walking down a street in Ferguson, Missouri, from his apartment to his grandmother’s, at 2:15 on a bright Saturday afternoon. He was, for a young man, exactly where he should be—among other things, days away from his first college classes. A policeman stopped him; it’s not clear why. People in the neighborhood have told reporters that they remember what happened next as a series of movements: the officer, it seemed to them, trying to put Brown into a car; Brown running with his hands in the air; the policeman shooting; Brown falling. The next morning, Jon Belmar, the police chief of St. Louis County, which covers Ferguson, was asked, at a press conference, how many times Brown had been shot. Belmar said that he wasn’t sure: ‘more than just a couple of times, but not much more.’ When counting bullets,’“just’ and ‘not much more’ are odd words to choose.”

— “Why Did Michael Brown Die in Ferguson?” Amy Davison, The New Yorker

 Related:

“The Anger in Ferguson,” Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

“It’s not just Ferguson: America’s criminal justice system is racist,” Ezra Klein, Vox

“The Death of Michael Brown and the Search for Justice in Black America,” Mychal Denzel Smith, The Nation

“We All Live in Ferguson,” Ryan Jacobs, Pacific Standard

“Ferguson, Mo. Emblematic of Growing Suburban Poverty,” Elizabeth Kneebone, Brookings Institution

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Santa Doesn’t Play

It’s Elves vs. Trolls in Hampton, Virginia. Shoplifters and muggers, be warned: Santa doesn’t play. Courtesy of the Hampton Police Department.

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