HLS Body PJ

Response and Recovery of Homeland Security

Taminka Watford

Tiffin University

The 2021 Capital riots were initiated by President Trump’s supporters citing

electoral fraud in the 2020 elections. Tow groups, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys,

are the main groups that plan the capital riots that were scheduled for January 6, 2021

(Dave et al., 2021). During the riots, a lot of bureaucracy was witnessed as the acting

secretary of defense asked the Capitol police head not to deploy the police officers

without being permitted. That gave the protesters a higher hand in the protests and it

enabled them to overpower the police officers who were barricading the Capitol

easily. The January Capitol riots show a lot about the response and recovery of

homeland security.

The head of Capitol polices was asked not to deploy the police officers as

mentioned above. At the onset of the Capitol riots, a lot of red tapes was witnessed. If

the police officers needed permission to engage, it indicated that they would easily be

overpowered (Mazzetti et al., 2021). Although the police officers and other law

enforcement officers were prepared in advance as the Capitol riots were planned for

December 2020, they would not execute. That reflects their response as a slow

response. However, the slow response was attributed to the lack of authorization and

bureaucracy. Homeland security was not deployed to respond to the riots at first.

After the rioters breached the walls of the Capitol, homeland security was

delayed before being deployed. The slow response increased the work that was

needed to return the situation to normalcy (Mazzetti et al., 2021). Other law

enforcement officers from neighboring states were also deployed to help homeland

security. Such officers were from Virginia and Maryland (Morabia, 2021). With the

help of other law enforcement officers, homeland security was able to recover within

a short period of time. It took them almost four hours to restore the situation to

normalcy.

References

Dave, D. M., McNichols, D., & Sabia, J. J. (2021). Political Violence, Risk Aversion,

and Non-Localized Disease Spread: Evidence from the US Capitol Riot (No.

w28410). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mazzetti, M., Cooper, H., Steinhauer, J., Kanno-Youngs, Z., & Broadwater, L. (2021).

Inside a Deadly Siege: How a String of Failures Led to a Dark Day at the

Capitol. The New York Times.

Morabia, A. (2021). The fascist threat.