DC police made five times as many arrests during BLM protests than Capitol riot
More than 300 Black Lives Matter protesters were arrested on June 1, compared to 61 'unrest related' arrests at the Capitol riot Wednesday
When Black Lives Matter protesters converged in Washington, D.C. last summer, they were met with considerable aggression.
D.C. police used military-style tactics, like deploying tear gas to control the crowd as helicopters whirred above and the National Guard patrolled the streets.
By stark contrast, the unruly mob of Trump supporters that forcibly barged into the US Capitol on Wednesday were met with a much smaller and far friendlier police presence, and when the deadly melee ended, only a small number of agitators were placed in custody.
Read More: Trump calls DC mayor ‘incompetent’ in clash over George Floyd protests
CNN reports that D.C. police arrested more than five times as many people at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests than they did during the siege at the Capitol, according to analysis of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) data. And many of the Capitol insurgents were detained on less serious charges, even though more D.C. police were injured and five people, including a police officer, were left dead.
On June 1, 316 protestors were arrested when protestors and rioters took to the streets a week after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. However, a mere 61 “unrest related” arrests were made on Wednesday at the Capitol.
D.C. activists expressed shock that such a few arrests were made after the deadly assault on the heart of American democracy, per CNN.
Read More: Off-duty police officers among rioters, one Capitol officer says
“It’s so, so insulting to racial justice activists that have been bringing attention to Black lives that have been lost,” said Anthony Lorenzo Green, one of the activists leading the Black Lives Matter D.C. group. “The way they chose to secure the Capitol was to let everybody go —they let these people back on our streets.”
If Black Lives Matter protesters had tried to enter the Capitol instead of the predominantly White pro-Trump crowd, Green said, “we would be shackled, we would be carried away, we would be shot, we would be dead.”
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