Metropolitan Police Department activated its Civil Disturbance Unit platoons two days before the Capitol Hill riots.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Homeland Security Bureau (HSB), and Special Operations Division (SOD) issued a report on Jan. 3, 2021, about potential demonstrations on Jan. 6 of the same year.
- Reports reviewed by journalists investigating the issue showed that the MPD began to activate Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU) platoons on Jan. 4, 2021.
- There were a total of 28 platoons scheduled to work over the next two days, including during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill disturbances.
- The stated objective of the groups was to assist with the demonstrations’ legal execution of their rights to demonstrate and to monitor potential illegal activity.
- Speculation has arisen that federal agents and Capitol Police were not only present but involved in instigating and encouraging the violence that took place that the protests.
- Reports from October of 2021 indicated that “multiple surveillance videos show masked men opening up the doors to the U.S. Capitol Building to allow protesters to enter. In fact, one video shows them entering while Capitol Police officers simply stand around. Yet, we have no idea who those men are.”
WHAT THE OFFICERS WERE TASKED WITH:
- According to the Department of Justice website, “A CDU is composed of law enforcement officers who are trained to respond to protests, demonstrations, and civil disturbances for the purpose of preventing violence, destruction of property, and unlawful interference with persons exercising their rights under [the] law.”
- The objective of MPD was “to assist with the safe execution of any First Amendment demonstration and ensure the safety of the participants, public, and the officers.” CDU personnel and Special Operations Division (SOD) members were to “monitor for any demonstration and/or violent activity and respond accordingly,” according to the report.
BACKGROUND:
- In December of 2021, there were many protesters still in custody, one of who is Joseph McBride, whose attorney appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
- McBride was seen in videos engaging in continuous conversation with uniformed officers and others he asserts were agents embedded in the crowd, saying one man was “clearly a law enforcement officer.
- “He passes out weapons, sledgehammers, poles, mace. Some of those things come in contact with some of the other protesters who have subsequently been charged with possessing dangerous weapons and are using dangerous weapons at the Capitol. That is clearly entrapment,” said McBride. “That is clearly the government creating conditions of dangerousness and entrapping members of the crowd to possess weapons and possibly use them for reasons that we cannot comprehend.”
