Who were the January 6th rioters?
This article purports to answer a question I’ve been wondering about since January 6: who were the rioters? But there are some curious gaps in the story.
Here’s the general description of the group charged with committing violations at the Capitol that day:
So far, only about 10% of those charged have been found to have ties to organised far right militias or other right-wing extremist groups.
“What we are dealing with here is not merely a mix of right-wing organisations, but a broader mass movement with violence at its core,” wrote Dr Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats.
Dr. Pape and the Project are affiliated with the University of Chicago, and I can’t find much about Pape’s politics. But I wondered two things: how he got access to the information on the arrested people, and what were they charged with?
The article doesn’t tell us. But it paints a picture of “insurrectionists” who are described as just ordinary Trump supporters, average age 40, quite atypical of the usual violent revolutionaries or rioters. The implication is that this is a frightening new phenomenon: your regular old conservative neighbor might well be an insurrectionist trying to overthrow the government.
But how do we know these people were actually bent on violence or insurrection? Were the people Pape studied charged with assault, for example? Were they arrested and charged merely because they were the people who were identifiable from photos and videos, or were they all doing something that distinguished them from the peaceful demonstrators? For example, how many of them were the people we’ve seen in some videos who were strolling into the Capitol because the Capitol police let them in – people who may not have even been aware they were trespassing? If the latter, it wouldn’t be surprising that they didn’t fit the profile of most violent rioters – perhaps because they weren’t violent rioters.
Fortunately I located another article, and this one (from the Atlantic) had more information about Dr. Pape’s research and about who these subjects might be.
The title is “The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists.” Here’s the scoop [emphasis added]:
On January 6, a mob of about 800 stormed the U.S. Capitol in support of former President Donald Trump, and many people made quick assumptions regarding who the insurrectionists were. Because a number of the rioters prominently displayed symbols of right-wing militias, for instance, some experts called for a crackdown on such groups. Violence organized and carried out by far-right militant organizations is disturbing, but it at least falls into a category familiar to law enforcement and the general public. However, a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the Capitol riot suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which more “normal” Trump supporters—middle-class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right—joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.
To understand the events of January 6 and devise solutions to prevent their recurrence, Americans need a fine-grained comprehension of who attacked the Capitol.
I certainly agree with that last sentence: but what does it mean to “attack” the Capitol? I would assume we’re talking about those who were violent either towards the Capitol Police or towards the building itself (window breakers, for example).
I had previously read that there were thousands of people “storming” the Capitol, but this article says 800. That’s a group that could easily have been handled by a proper number of security people on duty, but we already know that despite warnings the security was very light that day.
Here’s how the subjects seem to have been chosen by Pape for study [emphasis mine]:
In recent weeks, our team of more than 20 researchers has been reviewing court documents and media coverage for information on the demographics, socioeconomic traits, and militant-group affiliations (if any) of everyone arrested by the FBI, Capitol Police, and Washington, D.C., police for offenses related to the January 6 insurrection. As of late last week, 235 people fell into that category, and the number is expected to grow.
Of these suspects, 193 have been charged with being inside the Capitol building or with breaking through barriers to enter the Capitol grounds. We focused our research on these 193.
I found the data here as well as here.
So the people in the study were arrested for trespassing and for getting through some type of barrier, although we don’t know how permeable the barriers were or what they did to pass through them (did only some break them, for example, and the rest just followed?). The research does not mention any of them being charged with violence against Capitol Police. Not even broken windows, as far as I can see. Not spraying pepper spray. Those things aren’t listed, although there must be some people at the Capitol that day who were arrested for that sort of thing. But it seems to me that those are the ones who should interest us.
Other all-important data I was looking for wasn’t there either. For example, how many were merely arrested for trespassing? How many for breaking through barricades? Why isn’t that data there? Surely the researchers ought to have discovered those figures.
It appears from the study and the articles that everyone in that building, even if only arrested for trespassing, is assumed to have been intent on violence and trying to overthrow the government. The entire set of conclusions – these insurrectionists were just regular Trump supporters, so be afraid, be very afraid – is based on that idea. But the study doesn’t demonstrate it. It doesn’t even deal with it; it merely assumes it.
“it merely assumes it” because its propaganda, as you and we know full well.
Just today in here in CO the FBI announced the arrest of another person that breached the Capital. Still no word on those that did violence in Portland/Seattle/Chicago/Denver/St Louis. Wonder why?
The amount of damage from 1/6, ludicrously compared by some to 9/11, was minimal, completely negligible compared to last summer’s violent riots from Antifa and BLM, yet the corrupt DOJ/FBI will be devoting far more energy and money to tracking down the members of what was, in fact, no more than an unruly mob intent upon no grand design whatsoever, than were ever allocated to the violent criminals who wreaked so much chaos, havoc, and insanity in 2020. Jane Fonda admitted that COVID had been “God’s gift to the left”; so also were the Floyd riots and the shambolic events of last month the perfect excuse for leftists in power to use any so-called “crisis” as an opportunity for increased and increasingly punitive control.
I have seen and heard several reports from participants that the crowd was angered when Capitol Police, unprovoked and without warning, fired painful pepperballs into the crowd.
j e:
They’re not interested in what the Jan 6 rioters actually did. They are imputing evil intent to them, and the entire reaction is based on that imputed intent.
Pape’s website includes links to his article in The Atlantic and his interview by Don Lemon on CNN. His politics are pretty obvious.
I seem to remember that a major Antifa type from Oregon was arrested by the FBI shortly after the demonstration. No word about what’s happened to him.
Paul in Boston:
I agree that we can probably correctly deduce his politics. I just meant there’s nothing official out there as far as I know about his politics, so I’m not going to get into that. I’m more interested in the obvious gaps in his research.
The lack of public information about the riot probably means that of the 800 or so, only a small number engaged in actual violence or vandalism. As Wisconsin Sen. Johnson said, that’s not much of an “armed insurrection.”
Seems the main protagonist who looks to me on the video to get Ashlii killed was John Sullivan and is free clear and making lots of money off that video.
Around mid Jan. or perhaps the third week, I clicked on a FoxNews.com article on the “insurrection.” They had a graphic with bold letters claiming arrests numbering in the mid 80’s.
In smaller and finer print was the breakdown that something like 55 or 60 of those arrests were for curfew violations. (What will those skinheads think of next?) Supposedly, about 15 or 20 arrests were more serious than that.
This next one I remember exactly: 4 arrests were made for gun violations, 2 of which were for protestors carrying them (not brandishing I assume) plus 2 for “other” gun violations. I heard separately that one of the gun arrests was for a gun found in a vehicle (locked to the vehicle or not?), so possibly the 2 “others” were both guns in vehicles.
“Jane Fonda admitted that COVID had been “God’s gift to the left”; so also were the Floyd riots and the shambolic events of last month the perfect excuse for leftists in power to use any so-called “crisis” as an opportunity for increased and increasingly punitive control.” j e,
It’s just the beginning. In order to create their brave new world, they have to impose draconian measures and the more extreme those measures, the more terrible will be the reckoning.
Pelosi et al sense this, evidenced by their having erected a razor wire topped moat around our former Capitol, now appropriately dubbed “Fort Pelosi”. Sure its agitprop but the deeper reveal is the depth of fear they feel as they implement the beginning of their final solution.
“Never interfere with an enemy when they committed to making a fatal mistake” Napoleon Bonaparte
“Those the gods would destroy, they first make mad”
“militants”, “extremist” “right-wing” all are words which, in the hands of the left, lack any specific definition other than the left doesn’t like them. So unless the good professor lays out specific criteria for including his subjects in these groups, it’s just another hatchet job.
Remember: CNN argued in court that terming the Covington HIgh School Kids racists was meaningless because the word was ambiguous.
When the data that informs the conclusions of a study is purposefully made unavailable or difficult to find and piece together then it should be assumed that the study is junk, propaganda, and that the results reported have little grounding in reality-reality but are only there to reinforce a political narrative.
“Fort Pelosi”
The ruling Triumvirate of Pelosi-Schumer-Harris feel it is necessary to have a legion on hand in the capital.
Charlottesville Hoax v. 2.0 would not have worked if GOP had not been complicit, IMHO…Why else hasn’t McConnell or any other Republican yet made public the name of the Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt–an Air Force veteran and a Republican? Not one GOP member of Congress wants to get to the bottom of this? Tells you all you need to know…
“charged with being inside the Capitol building or …”
OK, now let’s arrest all the members of Congress.
Knowledge and clarity get in the way of The Narrative(TM).
Ignorance, lying, hysteria, violence and agitprop nourish it and protect it.
The Democrats and their allies in the media and academia, and especially info-tech must therefore promote anything and everything that supports The Narrative.
Whatever it takes they must and WILL do.
Whatever must be corroded.
Whatever must be destroyed.
An epic battle is underway.
And the Democrats et al. are very, very afraid and so will do everything to destroy what makes them afraid.
The only way they will be able to look themselves in the mirror every morning is to lie about what they are doing.
The problem is that doing so becomes habitual, ingrained, addictive and soul destroying.
But they don’t seem to care…and so the lying must continue.
Well, the story is locked in because there will be no opportunity to hear an alternative.
On one hand, you could think it a good thing for them to be afraid of ordinary Trump supporters since there are so many. On the other hand, they could be establishing a justification to go after ordinary Trump supporters individually.
I could say that we need some way to stand together, peacefully of course; but even that could earn me a conspiracist label from the people who monitor sites such as this. So, I won’t say it.
The people haves lost a couple of powerful voices. Rush due to human mortality; and Trump due to isolation. I wonder who, if anyone, will step forward.
Why else hasn’t McConnell or any other Republican yet made public the name of the Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt–an Air Force veteran and a Republican? Not one GOP member of Congress wants to get to the bottom of this? Tells you all you need to know…
Excellent point and I think it will be remembered. Assuming we are not all in gulags by 2024.
Dr. Pape doesn’t give a rip about anyone’s auto parts store. He doesn’t know anyone who would earn a living as a small merchant.
@GB:
Didn’t realise Jane Fonda worshipped a Fat Ass Winnie the Pooh Lookalike. But he’s USA’s Enemy No. 1 du Jour, so what was I thinking? Of course she does!
Back in the early 2000s Jane Fonda claimed she had become a Christian. Her black chauffeur took her to his Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. She studied the Bible. It led to her break up with Ted Turner.
Apparently she still is a Christian, though a roll-your-own sort.
___________________________________________________
“I believe that Christ was the personal incarnation of the divine wisdom,” she says. “My faith is a work in progress.”
While some will criticize her lack of orthodoxy, perhaps Christians should pray for Fonda.
“Christianity is my spiritual home,” she said on Beliefnet. “This is where I’m meant to be. And that I have to discover for myself what that means.”
–“Jane Fonda’s singular life, unconventional Christian faith” (2017)
https://www.godreports.com/2017/04/jane-fondas-singular-life-unconventional-christian-faith/
I encourage everyone to watch this short interview with Michael Yon, Mike is the closest thing we have to a real war correspondent. I have followed him since the Iraq war, he is very credible. What he recognized is important, the trump supporters were kind of dragged in by professionals, many were also let in by the police, expect those videos to disappear, I think the whole thing was staged. If you watch the few videos of struggles with the police, it didn’t look real, it reminded me of movie acting or WWE wrestling. This explains a lot, 20 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bIeKj7fZ8U
@Huxley:
Now that’s a plot twist that was never going to make it past the initial Driving Miss Daisy script conference.
JF could have broken up with Ted faster if she’d studied the DSM-IV instead of mooning about in Ecclesiastes or whatever.
Dr Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats was an advisor to Barack Obama. That’s all you need to know about him.
@Ray:
Neo is analytical, rational, and slow to judge. She wields a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hb8AYnRb-4
To a Yahoo such as myself, cursory google of Pape —> he’s for the Pit.
From your straightforward sensible comment, I discern that you might be a Based Houyhnhnm.
Now that’s a plot twist that was never going to make it past the initial Driving Miss Daisy script conference.
Zaphod: He shoots; he scores!
Monomania has its Moments.
“Because a number of the rioters prominently displayed symbols of right-wing militias, for instance, some experts called for a crackdown on such groups. ”
What “symbols of right wing militias?” I belong to an online militia group, which is quite large, National in scope. And I know of no such symbols.
I wonder how he “knows” what these are but I don’t!
darrell links to Michael Yon. Much more informed, much more observant. And on Cap Hill steps that day, the 6th.
Yon has been a conflict zone reporter for 30 years, and is a veteran of some 500 protests, including 7 months in Hong Kong.
Much more authoritative than Pape.
I spent a lot of time following Twitter when the Hong Kong protests were happening and Twitter was a total cesspit of Wokeness (Local Hong Kong People actually doing the protesting tended to be on their own local web platforms and the Telegram app). All the Portland AntiFa types piled in on the Hong Kong Situation and attempted to co-opt it. They brought their own very special brand of Yon-abuse to the game. It was illuminating to say the least.
There’s a guy @zenjournalist who writes good stuff on the Thai Monarchy — clearly has excellent sources inside the Palace — but every now and then he’ll have a go out of the blue at Michael Yon. Probably worth randomly mentioning his name around all practicing ‘journalists’ just for the fun of winding them up at this point.
“Trump supporters . . . joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.”
There they go again, talking past the sale.
“they could be establishing a justification to go after ordinary Trump supporters individually.” Oldflyer
They may well be doing so, in fact it’s a certainty that is their intent. It’s extrodinarily foolish, as if they do go after ordinary, individual Trump supporters en mass, it’s going to precipitate an equal and opposite reaction. Its very obvious that the left wants violent riots by ‘deplorables’. Instead they’re courting 4th Generation Warfare. No amount of razor wire fencing will protect them from that form of modern guerilla warfare.
“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak. If your enemy… is in superior strength, evade him. … Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The question of who ‘invaded’ the capitol building is key – may have been a false flag type of event. Read the account of J. Michael Waller (senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy) in the Federalist – his eyewitness account of the capitol area on Jan 6, which mentions four groups that stood out as different from the typical Trump supporter: 1.)Plainclothes militants. 2.)Agents-provocateurs. 3.)Fake Trump protesters and 4.) Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A smallish group evidently came to DC with a plan. The lack of visible Capitol Police presence was also noteworthy.
How about this for a description of what happened on Jan 6?
President Trump spoke at the Stop the Steal Rally across that street from the White House from 12:00-1:11pm. The speech mapped out the ralliers plans and schedule: at the end of the speech the Stop the Steal Rally would turn into the Stop the Steal March. They would walk the ~35-minute distance to the Capitol. It would take the thousands of marchers at least an hour-and-a-half to make their way there and reassemble outside the Capitol. Once there they would cheer on the Senators inside who were scheduled to debate the acceptance of the votes from states where serious voter fraud had tainted the outcome. These debates were scheduled to begin at 3pm. The debate for each individual state would go on for an hour. The demand in each case was for auditors to investigate specific charges in each of the states, and for the acceptance of Electoral College votes to be delayed for 10 days until January 16th.
Before any of that could happen, while the president was still speaking, and the thousands of ralliers/marchers were still across town from the Capitol, anarchist/Marxist/Maoists arrived at the Capitol at about 12:40 and launched the Seal the Steal Riot, breaching the Capitol grounds by 12:55. At 12:45, DC police received a call that there was a pipe bomb at RNC headquarters. At 1:15, the pipe bomb at the DNC headquarters was phoned in. Police know that those bombs were placed between 7:30-8:30pm on Jan 5th.
The Republican senators who had pledged to speak against the steal were silenced.
The president and the thousands of Stop the Steal Ralliers/Marchers were silenced.
The Seal the Steal Riot succeeded in sealing the steal.
Since facts and narratives about Jan6 at Cap Hill and good-faith motivations for protesting the fraud election are being pilloried and impugned to justify prosecuting dissent on the right, I must voice my disagreement with Neo for endorsing Barnes rubbishing Powell, Flynn, and Patrick Byrne’s contentions of Chinese — foreign interference generally — in the election as fanciful and false.
Barnes “was correct” she writes. He argued “that the conspiracy/Dominion stuff, especially that involving other countries was a con designed to distract and make the lawyers and others who fell for it look foolish.” (See Neo’s comment here https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/02/09/more-about-that-time-article-the-arizona-call-by-fox-and-many-other-incidents-of-interest/#comment-2539168 )
Maybe. But there are other concretely supported facts that gainsay this estimate.
Why? First of all, we know that John Rattner, Director of DNI, got head-faked as Deep State ops DELIBERATELY DELAYED confirming that there was, indeed, Chinese interference in the November election!
Secondly, Patrick Byrne’s detailed and time-lined report around New Years demonstrates typical Deep State conflict over investigating Chinese printed ballots found in Georgia with Homeland Security agents on one side (demanding further investigations), versus Byrne’s bête noir, WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and the FIB scheming to cover up concrete evidence)p proving Chinese subversion of our US elections.
Guess who won? The usual suspects, of course! (See Byrne’s account posted February 4th https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/02/how-djt-lost-the-white-house-chapter-4-the-christmas-doldrums-december-23-noon-january-6/)
This raid and the discovery of Chinese printed ballots with shipping labels from Shanghai, linked to the use of a Dominion CC to finely shred all evidence unravelled only hours after a Georgia State Senate committee demanded to know more about these items, leaving only photos and videos and sample ballots left in concrete evidence, along side observational testimonies of people falsifying Barnes’ skepticism.
One hopes that someone with the stature of reporter Lee Smith will come forth on this event, comprehensively rebuking the lying Marxist media mythologizing.
But is is also deeply depressing that our side will not believe facts in evidence that support our warriors for Truth’s most sinister and actually Treasonous indictment produced by the likes of Sydney Powell, Lt Gen. Flynn, and Patrick Byrne.
Finally, Byrnes lays this all out before segueing into the rumour that Trump and family were threatened by Deep State types with being “JFK’d” if he were to win re-election.
Who here believes WE SHOULD seriously trust our government? And our lying Marxist Media, instead? Almost no one, I’d wager.
Another piece by someone who was there on Jan. 6th.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/heres_what_really_happened_before_the_incursion_into_the_capitol.html
Earlier this week, J. E. Dyer did one of her usual in-depth intel analyses that addressed many of the same questions brought up here.
First she goes through the break-down of the claim that Officer Sicknick was murdered by “Trump supporters” during the rioting.
Then, she delves into the most important piece of evidence being ignored by the press (and even Glenn Greenwald omitted it), which is the resignation letter of the Capitol Police Department head. She includes the entire letter, which I definitely recommend reading, then excerpts the critical segments.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/02/15/capitol-riot-prying-out-the-narrative-bringing-in-nuggets-of-reality/
I don’t think Dr. Pape included them in his study.
Some more on the riot arrests – I cite the LU post rather than CNN to copy the editor’s note (which I would guess was written by JED).
https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/02/18/capitol-police-officers-investigated-some-suspended-for-role-in-riot/
These are the famous “tour guides” who opened the doors while their buddies (per the Chief’s letter) were fighting for their lives somewhere else outside the Capitol building.
This has never been adequately explained, and CNN does not make an attempt to do so.
AesopFan: J. E. Dyer’s report, Chief Sund’s resignation letter, and ABCs censorship — followed by the FIBs non-arrests of the real culprits, the violent, coordinated criminal Antifa types — constitutes a devastating refutation and indictment of our Marxist Media-Deep State evil enemies within that Real Patriots must hatefully and righteously expose, confront, and depose, if civilian control of the US government is ever to be restored.
I apologise for that protracted, prolix thought. But I’m angry at these f***en bastards! Righteously and outrageously pissed. At this moment.
AesopFan, thanks for the link.
Exploring some of the other links leads to the Sunrise Movement and Shutdown DC, and the extent the left had been creating a sophisticated network to actively work against the re-election of Donald Trump.
It’s astonishing. Who was funding all of this?
https://www.sunriseexposed.com/
Here’s a allegedly leaked zoom video.
https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/leaked-zoom-call-reveals-election-day-plans?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
J E Dyer and Yon’s comments are dead on. I was there at the rally and didn’t go into the Capital but talked with someone who did. He was invited in by the police. So out of 250K people at a minimum 800 got in. That is .0032%. Of those about 600 were let in by Capital police leaving 200 or .0008%.
Ron Johnson said it best. How can it be an armed insurrection when there was not shots fired but one. And that would be by a cop. That would be .000004%.
Absolutely it was a false flag operation that succeeded brilliantly. Ashli Babbitt died to make Biden president…with two uniformed police standing by when she tried to climb through. Or when QAnon man walked into the Senate Chamber escorted by an ARMED Capital policeman who told him to get off the dais.
It will all come out sooner rather than later, but like the Durham investigation no one will pay the price at this time for deliberately understaffing the Capital on that day.
But there is a scary chilling thought starting to gain currency.
https://ncrenegade.com/editorial/if-you-think-you-can-just-be-silent-and-obedient-and-they-will-leave-you-alone-you-best-think-again-these-people-hate-you-and-they-are-out-to-replace-you-they-want-everything-that-we-stand-for-gone/