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Biden says race bias plain in handling of White mob

InternationalJan 08. 2021President-elect Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. “Totally unacceptable,” he said. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman

By The Washington Post · Annie Linskey, Chelsea Janes, Amy B Wang

President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday denounced what he described as an unequal justice system reflected in the lenient response to the mostly White rioters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol this week, suggesting a stark contrast with the treatment of racial justice demonstrators across the country last summer.

“You can’t tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said in Wilmington, before beginning to hammer his fist against the lectern. “We all know that is true. And it is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view.”

In some of his most pointed remarks to date on racial inequity, a topic he sometimes struggles to discuss despite his support from many Black voters, Biden pledged that the disparities would be addressed as he announced his Justice Department leadership team, including federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as attorney general.

A central goal of his presidency, Biden said, would be to restore the department’s independence and reputation after four years of politicization under President Donald Trump, noting that he had chosen people with years of experience at the agency.

“I want to be clear to those who lead this department who you will serve – you won’t work for me,” Biden said. “You are not the president or the vice president’s lawyer. Their loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, the Constitution, the people of this nation.”

Biden’s condemnation of racial injustice came after a year when police killings and street protests brought the issue vividly to the fore. Black activists have long cited a difference in the police handling of Black and White protesters, and the relatively hands-off treatment of Wednesday’s mob reinforced that impression for many.

Biden on Thursday related that his granddaughter Finnegan had sent him a photo of law enforcement officers lined up grimly at the Lincoln Memorial during a Black Lives Matter protest, highlighting a contrast with the handling of the Capitol mob, a disparity that many online commenters pointed out.

Biden takes control over the government in just two weeks, and he faces the additional complication of dealing with a Congress and a country reeling from Wednesday’s violence. Though some Republicans voiced disgust in the hours after rioters were cleared from the House and Senate chambers, the culture of division that led to the assault has been festering for years and is unlikely to dissipate quickly.

The events also hardened anti-GOP views among leaders of Biden’s own party – with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., now calling for Trump to be removed from office.

As he walked into the Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Biden brushed off a question from a reporter about whether he supports invoking the 25th Amendment to end Trump’s term. Standing onstage later, he referred to the question, saying, “I’m not going to speak to that today.”

Biden did make a point of connecting Trump’s long history of divisive rhetoric to the White rioters trashing the Capitol, at least one of them hoisting a Confederate flag.

“I wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming, but that isn’t true. We could see it coming,” Biden said. “For the past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, for rule of law, clear.”

It was an unusually harsh denunciation of an outgoing president by his successor. With less than two weeks remaining until Biden’s inauguration, the hostility between Trump and Biden is increasingly evident, as Trump continues to claim baselessly that he won the election.

With Thursday’s nominations, Biden has nearly finished filling out his Cabinet. In addition to Garland, his Justice Department team will include Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general, longtime civil rights advocate Vanita Gupta as the department’s No. 3, and Kristen Clarke as head of its civil rights division. All face Senate confirmation.

Biden and his allies stressed that Garland, Monaco and Gupta have deep experience combating domestic terrorism and systemic racism, remarks that came as some lawmakers were calling for Wednesday’s riot to be classified as terrorism.

Garland spoke about his experience prosecuting in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Biden noted that Monaco helped coordinate the federal investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing and that Gupta was part of the investigation into racial disparities in the police department in Ferguson, Mo., after the killing of a Black man by police led to widespread unrest.

Also Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said Biden has tapped Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to be commerce secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to be labor secretary.

In the fraught atmosphere after Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol, some leaders in the Democratic coalition wondered whether Biden’s pledge to be a “unifier” was enough, and whether they could or should come together with a Republican Party that for four years has supported Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and dubious actions.

“The posture here is going to have to shift from compromise and negotiation to setting the tone and setting the path,” said Alicia Garza, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. “This is complicated, because Biden really was selected in a lot of ways as a caretaker president.”

The moment also laid bare nuanced differences in how Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris view racial and social strife. In brief remarks Wednesday, Biden said the scenes at the Capitol “do not represent who we are” as a country, a sentiment he has regularly repeated.

Harris put it differently Thursday, saying, “We know we should be better than this,” suggesting that violence and racism are not an aberration but a tangible part of the country’s makeup that needs to be conquered.

“Sadly, yesterday was a big old mirror,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist with ties to Biden’s team. “Biden is trying to call to our better angels. Perhaps what he could say is, ‘This doesn’t have to be who we are.’ “

During the presidential primary, Harris sometimes voiced frustration at questions about whether Trump was a racist or white supremacist, saying such queries sidestepped deeper questions about the country.

“I will not take part in a conversation that simplifies this issue,” Harris said at one point. “It happened before this guy was in the White House, it will continue after this guy was in this White House. He is certainly fanning the flames of hate; there’s no question about that. But if we’re going to have this conversation, let’s have it in a meaningful way.”

Harris, a former prosecutor, also took a more explicit stance than many of her fellow Democratic candidates in suggesting that Trump should face legal consequences for his actions, suggesting months before he was impeached that some form of penalty was warranted. Biden was less willing to call for impeachment or other consequences.

“I’ve seen prosecution of cases on much less evidence,” Harris said after the publication of special counsel Robert Mueller III’s report, arguing that it provided enough evidence for charges of obstruction of justice against Trump.

More broadly, the question of disparate legal consequences for different individuals and groups has become a heated topic in the riot’s aftermath. Former first lady Michelle Obama was among those weighing in Thursday.

“There’s one question I just can’t shake: What if these rioters had looked like the folks who go to Ebenezer Baptist Church every Sunday?” she wrote, referring to a prominent Black church in Atlanta. “What would have been different? I think we all know the answer.”

Amid the swirling discussion of justice, race and equality, Biden’s choice of Garland as attorney general has not been welcomed by leading civil rights groups, which had hoped he would pick an attorney general with a stronger record on racial justice.

About a month ago, Biden and Harris had met with the heads of seven civil rights organizations, and they pushed him to choose an attorney general – preferably a person of color – with a clear track record of fighting for civil rights.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Biden confidant, said Thursday that he was disappointed in the selection of Garland and wanted to meet with the nominee. Sharpton said he was unclear on where Garland stood on some questions, such as whether it should be illegal for police to turn off their body cameras, as many civil rights activists want.

“Where will Garland stand on that? At least to me, I’m not clear at all where his divisions are,” Sharpton said. “I call on Garland to meet with civil rights leadership.”

By contrast, Sharpton said he was well acquainted with the rest of Biden’s nominees – including Gupta and Clarke – and hoped they would prioritize reviving the Justice Department’s civil rights division and aggressively protecting voting rights.

“I want to hear from them that they are going to investigate to the fullest degree of the law the attempted coup d’etat yesterday,” Sharpton said.

Biden has been careful to avoid talking about prosecuting the current president. But on Thursday, he offered harsh word on that front, too.

“Our president is not above the law,” Biden said. “Justice serves the people. It doesn’t protect the powerful. Justice is blind.”

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Fresh details emerge about woman’s shooting by Capitol Police

InternationalJan 08. 2021Melody Black cries on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021, at a memorial for Ashli Babbitt outside the Capitol, where she was shot and killed in a riot the day before. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain

By The Washington Post · Justin Jouvenal, Carol D. Leonnig

WASHINGTON – Shortly after a mob breached the Capitol on Wednesday, some in the group penetrated all the way to the Speaker’s Lobby, the hallway outside the House chamber, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the incident.

The rioters tried to break through the lobby’s elaborate glass and wood doors, which had been hastily barricaded with chairs and other furniture, the officials said. Ashli Babbitt, wearing a Trump flag as a cape, tried to climb through a smashed glass pane in one of the doors.

In the chaotic scene, a U.S. Capitol Police officer in a suit and surgical mask pointed a gun in her direction and fired a single shot, the officials said. Babbitt, a 35-year-old California native and Air Force veteran, was struck in the neck and later died. The two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because an investigation is ongoing, said she was unarmed.

It was unclear whether the officer, who works in the division that guards the House chamber, could see that, directly behind Babbitt and the cluster of trespassers with her, were other officers, with rifles in hand and in tactical gear, the officials said. They said a Capitol Hill staffer tried to help Babbitt after she fell.

During a day of rioting inside the Capitol that left offices vandalized and smoke wafting through hallways, the shooting was the most violent moment amid hours of unrest by a mob that overran security.

The circumstances surrounding the incident became clearer Thursday, as did the life of Babbitt, an ardent Trump supporter who traveled across the country from her home in the San Diego area to take part in the mayhem. Babbitt on Twitter referenced QAnon conspiracy theories and pushed baseless assertions that the November election was stolen from President Donald Trump.

“Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!” Babbitt tweeted the day before she died.

The Capitol Police announced Thursday that the officer involved in Babbitt’s killing had been placed on administrative leave as the department and District of Columbia police investigate the shooting. D.C. police probe all police shootings that occur in the city, even on federal grounds.

“The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.,” Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said in a statement that came hours before it was announced he would resign later this month.

The statement was the first Capitol Police had made since the rioting. The statement did not say when the name of the officer involved in the shooting would be released, and a spokeswoman for the department declined to answer additional questions. Capitol Police do not have body-worn cameras.

House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, Sund’s boss, also stepped down after sharp criticism of the handling of the violence at the Capitol.

D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee did not offer additional details about the shooting at a news conference Thursday. Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attorney for D.C., said his office is investigating.

“This is a tragic incident, and I send my condolences to the victim’s family and friends,” Contee said.

John Sullivan, a liberal activist, said in an interview broadcast on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that rioters were using flagpoles and other items to smash glass windows in the Capitol shortly before the shooting. Sullivan said Babbitt tried to make it through one of the windows in the barricaded doors into a part of the Capitol that had not been breached when the officer with the gun came out of a doorway.

“The second that she climbed through the window, she got shot right in the neck area, fell backwards,” Sullivan said in the interview. “I just remember the sense of shock and sorrow that somebody just died and did not need to die.”

In videos posted on social media, the Capitol Police officer is seen using a doorway as cover before he opens fire.

Babbitt is seen falling from the window frame to the floor as she is surrounded by Trump supporters and law enforcement officers with guns. In one video, officers shout at rioters to get back so Babbitt can be treated as she lies, sprawled out.

Timothy McEntee, Babbitt’s ex-husband, said she owned a pool-cleaning business and was outspoken. She listed herself as a libertarian on Twitter.

In one video posted to Twitter, Babbitt talks about liberal politicians and what she viewed as the negative impact of immigration on the U.S. economy. In another tweet, she called for Vice President Mike Pence to resign and to be prosecuted for treason, presumably for not being supportive enough of Trump’s calls to overturn the election.

“She’s a small-business owner in California and felt (much like others) that she was being wronged,” McEntee wrote in a text message.

In the days before the shooting, Babbitt retweeted a number of messages from demonstrators headed to D.C. for the protests on Wednesday. One read: “It will be 1776 all over again…. only bigger and better.”

McEntee said Babbitt loved the United States. She served on active duty for four years, with nearly six years in the Air National Guard, according to her service record provided to The Washington Post. Her last active-duty position was akin to a base police officer. She served in Iraq at least once.

Experts on police shootings said it will require more investigation to determine whether the shooting was justified. Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired New York City Police Department detective sergeant, said the chaotic nature of the incident will make a probe tricky.

“It’s going to be a very difficult justification investigation for sure,” Giacalone said. “You have a situation where the entire Capitol building is overrun and officers are severely outnumbered. Did he fear for his life?”

Ron Martinelli, a forensic criminologist and retired police officer, said that it was too soon to come to a conclusion about the shooting, but that it appeared “problematic.” He said the fact that Babbitt was crawling through a window pane was not reason enough to open fire.

“Entry alone does not constitute an imminent threat to apply deadly force,” Martinelli said.