Perhaps there is wisdom in crowds, but there is definitely stupidity in mobs. Yet, judging by American law enforcement’s response to politically-motivated mobs over the course of the last year, the mobs seem to be winning.
Exhibit A: SEATTLE – Seattle police abandoned the East Precinct building on Capitol Hill, and a no-police “autonomous zone” was declared in the area. It was only reclaimed months later, after two teenagers were shot to death inside the “CHOP” zone.
Exhibit B: MINNEAPOLIS – Hundreds of people overran the 3rd Precinct on May 28, and Mayor Jacob Frey ordered police to abandon it. The attackers then set fire to the building. In the following months, Minneapolis homicides increased by 50%.
Exhibit C: PORTLAND – Night after night, for months, antifa and other armed activists attacked the federal court house. They also vandalized Portland City Hall, the Oregon Historical Society, the Portland Police Bureau Central District, the Democratic Party’s state headquarters, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building, and other buildings as well.
Exhibit D: WASHINGTON, DC – As a mob of Trump supporters swarmed up the stairs of the Capitol building, the cops removed the crowd-management barriers and let them in! Who gave that order? What were they thinking? Later, a Capitol police officer fired one fatal shot at a rioter. A police officer also died from his injuries, and many police officers were injured. One rioter was trampled to death, another died from a heart attack, and a third from a stroke.
The moral of this story: Never open the door to the mob. Never let the barbarians inside the gate!
Mobs of Democrats or mobs of Republicans, mobs of anarchists or socialists or libertarians or fascists, of racists or anti-racists – it shouldn’t matter. It doesn't matter. A MOB IS A MOB IS A MOB. And one of the worst actions that can be taken by officers of the law is to withdraw in the face of a mob. Don’t let the mob win! Not even temporarily.
Of course I can’t prove a counterfactual of what would have happened at the WDC Capitol if the Capitol police officers, with or without reinforcements from the National Guard and other military or law enforcement units, had stood their ground, not let the crowd enter the Capitol grounds, and taken action to disperse the crowd before it turned into a mob.
What if the Capitol police had not removed the barriers? Removing them granted access to the marchers – which they might even have been interpreted as permission to enter the Capitol grounds and approach the buildings’ entrances.
A group of people, whether it’s still acting semi-rationally as a crowd or irrationally as a mob, reacts differently to resistance than to permission. What lessons can be learned from police retreating in the face of rioters and protesters versus standing their ground and employing effective non-lethal force? It’s a bad idea for the police to let rioters take over and damage or destroy government buildings, even if holding the buildings might require the use of force that could cause bodily injury. When the barbarians are at the gate -- barbarians of the Left or the Right -- don’t let them in!