Last Wednesday I was busy typing up a story for the newspaper when, from behind me, I could hear my Mom yelling at the TV in Spanish (well she was actually cursing at the TV).

    “What the bleep are these idiots doing?” 

“Get the bleep out of there you bleep!”

Curious, I rushed over to the TV and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

    Hundreds of people were storming the US Capitol building and lots of them managed to get inside. All this while our Elected Officials were inside presiding over the ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes to confirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.

    “Mom, what the bleep are they doing?”

“How the bleep did they get that close to the building?” 

    “Are you bleeping kidding me?”

    People were climbing up the walls (just like they’ll do with that border wall being built), removing barricades and shoving their way through D.C. and Capitol Police who were obviously outnumbered. 

    It was chaos and in the aftermath five people ended up dying. These domestic terrorists trashed the inside of the building and broke several windows and doors.

    Some are saying ALL those folks were Antifa dressed up as Trump supporters to make “peaceful protesters” look bad. 

    I call BS on that.

    And honestly it doesn’t matter that some were White Nationalist (several were as they have already been identified), Q-Anon believers (a few were as they have also been identified), Proud Boys (who publicly announced they would be there), Antifa, Trump loyalists, Democrats, Republicans, someone’s grandparents or Mickey Mouse for that matter.

    Most who gathered were there to support President Donald Trump who spoke to the crowd and said they need to continue to “fight” to “stop the steal,” and that they should all march to the Capitol.

    It may have started out as a peaceful protest but once they stormed the building and vandalized their way inside, those involved went from being peaceful protesters to rioters, looters, domestic terrorists, and insurrectionists.

    Those people were no different than the folks who burned and looted buildings during the Black Lives Matter causes over the summer.

    Violence, looting, and destruction is never the answer. NEVER!

    The gathering on Jan. 6, was planned weeks before. Trump kept tweeting that Jan. 6, was going to be his glorious victory day.     Everyone knew there would be a massive gathering.

    So, where was the police presence?

    As I recall the National Guard was out in mass during the summer riots. In fact, the crowd was tear-gassed and dispersed with rubber bullets while President Trump made his way across Lafayette Square to get his photo taken holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

    Why weren’t the domestic terrorist rioters storming the Capitol met with the same use of force to protect “The People’s House,” and the Elected Officials inside?

    Who gave the stand down order?

    Trump had told his supporters that he was going to march with them to the Capitol. Instead, Trump went into a tent where Donald Trump Jr, sister Ivanka, brother Eric, girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, chief-of-staff Mark Meadows and several others watched as the people marched toward the Capitol.

    There is video footage, shot by Donald Jr., showing all of them all dancing and celebrating just moments before the rioters breached the Capitol.

    And then they just continued to watch. President Trump didn’t say or do anything to stop the violence for several HOURS after they had stormed the building.

In my opinion that is completely disgraceful.

And these rioters weren’t very smart either, bragging about their escapades of breaking into the Capitol and posting their “selfies” on Instagram. Parler, Facebook, You Tube and everywhere else for that matter.

HELLO! DO YOU REALIZE YOU COMMITED CRIMES?

According to some legal experts these rioters may face a variety of crimes from vandalism to sedition as well as misdemeanors and felonies related to assault of law enforcement officers, firearms offenses, breaking and entering, trespassing and the willful injury of federal property.

I hope a full investigation is conducted and we get the answers we deserve as to why the Capitol Police were so ill-equipped to handle the matter. And I look forward to the day when the people responsible for this attempted coup be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This should never happen at our Capitol or any other American Institution again.

-Patty Leon