Report details mishandling of police emergency system on 1/6

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Report details mishandling of police emergency system on 1/6

By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL BALSAMO
August 24, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Capitol Police didn’t adequately respond to frantic calls for help from officers when they pressed panic buttons on their radios seeking immediate backup as scores of pro-Trump rioters beat officers with bats, poles and other weapons, an inspector general’s report found.

The report obtained by The Associated Press offered new details about the shortcomings by law enforcement during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

The report found that most of the emergency activations from individual officers’ radios were never simulcast on police radio, a standard protocol designed to spread the word to other officers about emergencies and crises. The on-duty watch commander appears not to have been made aware of at least some of the system activations, the report said.

Police officials in Washington are increasingly concerned about a rally planned for Sept. 18 on federal land next to the Capitol that organizers have said is meant to demand “justice” for the hundreds of people already charged in connection with January’s insurrection.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/politics-41f2e86ebd0a9a29e49a53c91362b9f5

[The Magistrate]

1. The On-Duty Watch Commander, Sir, Appears To Have Been In On The Plan

This is one instance where my usual rule of preferring incompetence to malice as cause of fuck-ups ought to be relaxed. The default position here has to be that if police supervisors didn't do what they were supposed to do in the crisis, then they were assisting the coup.

[bottomofthehill]

2. The officers that were there were all engaged.

It was not until there were enough other departments responding that they could counter what was going on. It was close to 6pm when the DC National Guard came and they finally had the numbers.