Researcher Mathieu Zagrodzki, a specialist in law enforcement in the United States and France, analyzes the flaws in the device around the Capitol, which allowed pro-Trump protesters to enter the building.
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After pro-Trump demonstrators burst into the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday January 6, the management of US law enforcement security has come under fire. Mathieu Zagrodzki, associate researcher at the Center for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions (Cesdip) and author of a thesis on American and French police, deciphers for Le Monde the underside of this “huge failure”.
Can we speak of a failure of the American police force in the events that took place on Capitol Hill?
It is a huge failure on their part. It was not imaginable that a crowd would enter this building symbol of legislative power. Imagine the same thing in the National Assembly: it seems impossible. There are the gates which protect the access to the steps, there would have been mobile force units positioned all around, all the streets closed around, we would have deployed armored vehicles… What happened is an insane attack on the separation of powers, the leader of the executive who incites half a word to storm the high place of legislative power.
How is the Capitol protected?
The Capitol Police is a rather special force, which is placed directly under the aegis of the US Congress. It does not depend on the executive power and therefore on the White House. Its mission is to protect the building and ensure the safety of members of Congress. It has “only” 1,800 people, who cannot be mobilized all at the same time, to protect a building that is not designed as a bunker: it is a 19th e building. century, which has security holes, with many windows in particular. There was a plan, a few years ago, to build a sort of fence around it, which would have been a first line of defense. This had been abandoned because in American symbolism, it is the people’s palace, the symbol of power by the people, for the people.
Is this the responsibility of the Capitol police?
No, they do not have the human means to hold back a crowd of several thousand unleashed individuals. When the demonstrators are on the steps, there is nothing more you can do. Either you oppose with your body, but you have to have the number, or you draw your weapon, and it becomes a bloodbath. It was the previous lines of defense that failed, or rather did not exist…
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