WASHINGTON (THE DAILY MAIL): Shocking new footage has emerged from Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol which shows a police officer being yanked out of the building and beaten with a flagpole bearing the American flag.
The footage, circulating online, shows the moment the first officer was hauled out of a door on Wednesday afternoon, and set upon by the frenzied mob of Donald Trump ‘s supporters.
The officer has not yet been identified. The video is not thought to be of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after collapsing in his field office having allegedly been beaten by the mob with a fire extinguisher.
It emerged on Sunday night as fresh fears grew over another violent insurrection that is being planned for January 17-19 – Trump’s last weekend in office. The plot was being discussed on sites including Parler, which has now vanished from the internet after being ex-communicated by Amazon, Apple and Google.
Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has also said she is ‘extremely concerned’ about security over President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. She asked for National Guard back-up before the riots last week but was only given 340 unarmed troops. The Capitol Police presence was the same as any ordinary day and the force only has 2,300 cops in total – a fraction of the 10,000-strong mob.
So far, at least 82 people have been arrested and more than 55 have been charged over the insurrection. Hundreds more are being hunted by the authorities but are yet to be found, including 25 people who are being investigated on terrorism charges.
The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin has called the scope of the multi-agency hunt for the rioters ‘unprecedented.’
He has also fumed at Capitol Police for letting so many of them get away, saying it now makes the task of tracking them down more difficult.
He told NPR that staffers are now working round-the-clock to try to identify the criminals from photos and videos taken on the day.
‘I don’t want this tyranny of labels saying this was sedition, this was a coup.
‘But what I will say is, it was criminal,’ he said.
There is no running list of all those charged because the investigation into what happened is being handled by multiple authorities; the DC Metropolitan Police, Capitol Police and the FBI are all running probes, along with prosecutors from the Justice Department.
The Capitol Police did not request National Guard back-up or any other kind of back-up. According to Congressman Jason Crow, the Department of Defense offered support to both Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police but they were told it wasn’t necessary.
They thought that only a few thousand protesters would be there.
On January 6, when they realized the crowd was much larger, back-up was requested at around the same time that the crowd started storming the Capitol.
By then, the situation was out of hand. There was no plan in place for how to tackle the chaos. Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy told Crow that 25 domestic terrorism cases have now been opened.
He also said that there are ‘further possible threats’ leading up to Inauguration Day.
In the new video of the cop being attacked, the officer is shown being flung face first onto the Capitol steps and set upon by rioters, who beat him while he was lying defenseless. One used a black baton on him.
Another man is seen giving the middle finger to officers still inside the building, desperately trying to keep the mob back.
The officer dragged from the Capitol has not been identified, but is believed to be a member of the DC Metropolitan Police, not the Capitol Police.
One Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, died Thursday night from injuries suffered during the riot.
Sicknick, 42, was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during a struggle, two law enforcement officials told Associated Press.
A second member of the Capitol Police, Howard Liebengood, was on duty on Wednesday and died by suicide on Saturday.
Four rioters also died – one woman shot by Capitol Police, and three during medical emergencies.
One of those was apparently trampled in the melee.
At around the same time as the police officer was being dragged from the Capitol and set upon, Trump was recording a video in which he said he ‘loved’ the rioters.
The video was later removed by Twitter, and Trump has since been banned from social media due to his incendiary comments.
At least one Capitol cop is being hailed as a hero for leading the mob away from the Senate floor.
Eugene Goodman was filmed by a reporter trying to fend off the ferocious crowd as they stormed the building.
Armed apparently only with a baton, he was charged by the mob, with Doug Jensen, 41, of Des Moines, Iowa, leading the charge in a QAnon hoodie. Jensen was arrested on Saturday.
Goodman appears to have noticed that the rioters came right up to the entrance of an open door leading straight to the Senate.
At that moment, 2:15pm, according to a detailed analysis by The Washington Post, the Senate doors were unlocked as security tried frantically to protect the Senators inside.
Goodman was filmed glancing to his left and looking at the unlocked door.
He then shoved Jensen and started running.
The mob gave chase, following him up the stairs.
One minute later, the Senate door was locked.
It’s unclear if Goodman knew the door was unlocked at the time, and if him running away was a deliberate diversion tactic.
In either case, it stopped the mob from getting into the Senate floor while the lawmakers were there, and allowed for them to be evacuated.
Goodman has now been widely praised on social media, with mounting calls for him to be awarded the Medal of Valor or Medal of Honor.
‘Thank you, Officer Eugene Goodman,’ tweeted Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King.
Benjamin Crump, the crusading civil rights lawyer known for representing the families of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others, heaped praise on the officer.
‘Eugene Goodman deserves the Medal of Valor!’ he said.
‘He could have stepped aside and let Trump insurgents get to the Senate chamber while Senators were still there.
‘Instead, this heroic officer got them to follow him the other direction, giving lawmakers time to escape!’
Jaime Harrison, former candidate for the Senate representing South Carolina, said he may have single-handedly ‘saved our Republic’.
‘The word hero does not appropriately describe officer Eugene Goodman,’ he said.
‘His judgment & heroism may have saved our Republic.
‘I hope consider him for the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is the least we can do.’
Goodman himself hasn’t yet spoken out.
Serious questions are now being asked as to how the Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan forces were so ill prepared for the onslaught.
A new analysis of social media posts by Alethea Group, an organization combating disinformation that draws its name from the Greek word for ‘truth,’ found abundant evidence of threatening plans on a range of platforms, with some scheduled for Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, and others for Trump’s last weekend in office – January 17.
‘REFUSE TO BE SILENCED,’ said one online post cited by Alethea Group, calling for an ‘ARMED MARCH ON CAPITOL HILL & ALL STATE CAPITOLS’ for January 17, the last Sunday of Trump’s presidency.
Another post called for action at ‘DC & All State Capitols’ and was signed by ‘common folk who are tired of being tread upon’ declares: ‘We were warned!’
The FBI and the NYPD also warned the Capitol Police about potential violence but were ignored.
‘Social media is just part of a full intelligence picture, and while there was First Amendment-protected activity on social media to include some people making threats, to this point, investigators have not found that there was an organized plot to access the Capitol,’ a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.
