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By MARY CLARE JALONICK, ANDREW TAYLOR, LISA MASCARO and CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) – “Where are they?” demanded a Trump supporter from a crowd of dozens wandering the halls of the Capitol, carrying Trump flags and knocking on doors.
They – lawmakers, staff and more – hid under tables, hid in locks, recited prayers, and saw up close and violent the fruits of the country’s divisions.
Guns were fired. A woman was shot and killed by police and three others died in apparent medical emergencies. A Trump flag hung from the Capitol. The graceful Rotunda reeked of tear gas. The glass shattered.
On Wednesday, the sacred spaces of American democracy, one after another, gave way to congressional occupation.
The pro-Trump mob has taken over the presidency from the Speaker of the Senate, the Speaker’s offices and the Senate dais, where one shouted, “Trump has won this election.”
They mocked its leaders, posing for photos in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one with her feet propped up on a desk in her office, another sitting in the same seat Vice President Mike Pence had occupied a few moments before during the procedure to certify the Vote of the electoral college.
It started as a day of reckoning with President Donald Trump’s futile attempt to cling to power as Congress took the certification of victory from President-elect Joe Biden. It turned into scenes of fear and agony that left a primary ritual of American democracy in tatters.
Trump told his morning crowd at the Ellipse that he would accompany them to Capitol Hill, but he did not. Instead, he sent them out with inflammatory rhetoric.
“If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country,” he said. “Let the weak out,” he continued. “This is the moment of strength.”
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd, “Let’s do a trial by combat.”
What happened on Wednesday was nothing less than an attempted coup, said Representative Diana DeGette, D-Colo. Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., A frequent critic of Trump, said: “Today the United States Capitol – the world’s greatest symbol of self-government – was ransacked while the leader of the free world huddled behind his keyboard.
Sasse continued, “Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly result of the president’s dependence on constant division.
Police said they recovered two homemade bombs, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee and a cooler from a vehicle that had a long gun and a Molotov cocktail on the grounds of the Capitol.
Still, Trump, in a video released 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated, told insurgents, “We love you. You are very special ”while asking them to go home.
The authorities finally regained control after dark.
Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements began using tear gas in a coordinated effort to get people to move towards the door, then combed the hallways for stragglers, pushing the crowds further onto the square and lawn, in clouds of tear gas, flash bangs and percussion grenades.
Video footage also showed officers letting people calmly exit the doors of the Capitol despite the riots and vandalism. Only a dozen arrests were made in the hours following the resumption of control by the authorities. They said a woman was shot earlier as mobs tried to break through a barricaded door to the Capitol where police were armed on the other side.
She was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and later died.
Very early on, some inside the Capitol saw the problem coming from the windows. Democratic Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota surveyed the growing crowd on the pitch shortly after Trump addressed his supporters through the Ellipse, fueling their grievances over an election he and they say they won, against any proof.
“I looked out the windows and could see how overwhelmed the Capitol Police were,” Phillips said. Under the same lifts set up for Biden’s inauguration, Trump supporters clashed with police who detonated pepper spray in an attempt to restrain them.
It did not work. Crowds of unmasked MAGA-wearing protesters demolished metal barricades at the foot of the Capitol steps. Some in the crowd were shouting “traitors” as the officers tried to hold them back. They broke into the building.
Announcements rang out: Due to an “external security threat,” no one could enter or leave the Capitol complex, according to the recording. A loud bang sounded when officials detonated a suspicious package to make sure it was not dangerous.
It was around 1:15 p.m. when New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas, a Democrat, said Capitol Hill police knocked on his door and “told us to drop everything, get out as quick as possible.”
“The speed with which law enforcement was overwhelmed by these protesters was mind-boggling,” he told The Associated Press.
Shortly after 2 p.m., Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated from the Senate as protesters and police shouted outside the doors.
“The protesters are in the building,” were the last words picked up by a microphone broadcasting the Senate live before it went out.
Police evacuated the room at 2:30 p.m., seizing boxes of Electoral College certificates as they left.
Phillips shouted at the Republicans, “It’s because of you!”
Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., Told reporters he was in the House bedroom when protesters began storming it. He said security guards urged lawmakers to put on gas masks and gathered them in a corner of the huge room.
“When we got to the other side of the gallery, from the Republican side, they let us all get out, you could see they were pushing back some kind of aggression, it looked like,” he said. “They had a piece of furniture against the door, the door, the entrance to the floor from the rotunda, and they had fired weapons. The officers eventually escorted the lawmakers out of the chamber.
Shortly after being ordered to put on gas masks, most of the members were quickly escorted out of the bedroom. But some members remained in the upper gallery seats, where they had been seated due to distance requirements.
Along with a group of reporters who had been escorted from the press area and Capitol Hill workers acting as bailiffs, the members ducked to the floor as police secured a bedroom door downstairs with pointed guns. After making sure the hallways were clear, police quickly escorted the members and others through a series of hallways and tunnels to a cafeteria in one of the House’s office buildings.
Describing the scene, Democratic Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut said, “There was a point where officers had their guns and guns pointed at the door, obviously they expected a breach through the door. It was clear he was close enough to pull the trigger so they all asked us to go downstairs to the bedroom.
Coming out of Capitol Hill, Himes said he had lived in Latin America and “always thought that could never happen here.
“We have known for years that our democracy was in peril and this is hopefully the worst and the last moment,” Himes said. “But with a president cheering on these people, with Republicans doing all they can to try and make people feel like their democracy has been taken away from them even though they’re the ones taking matters into their own hands, it’s really difficult, really sad. I have spent my entire political career reaching out to the other side. And it’s really hard to see that.
Illinois Democratic Representative Mike Quigley was also on the balcony. “It’s not good to be surrounded by terrified colleagues, with guns drawn at people who have a barricade… people who are crying. Not what you want to see, ”he says.
“This is how a coup is launched,” said Representative Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif. “This is how democracy dies.”
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Associated Press editors Ben Fox, Ashraf Khalil, Alan Fram and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
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