Insomnigraphic

 January 6, 2021

January 6th really began in DC on January 5th, at the small “Rally for Revival”, held as people arrived in DC to support the President.

The sparsely-attended event (suggesting to me the next day may be too) would prove to be my introduction to a couple characters who would, within 24 hours, become faces of January 6th.

One was casually wheeling a mountain bike around in full tactical gear. His manner was indistinguishable from any bicyclist I might see stop and chat with a friend, so much so that it was possible to forget the battle dress. Until he looked at me. His eyes were not relaxed. They were pale knives.

The other individual was striding purposefully around the outer edge of Freedom Plaza in a pea coat with the manner of someone who thinks they should be noticed. This usually puts me off, so I started to leave without pulling my camera on him. Until I realized the flag he was carrying was hung on a spear. I stepped into his path and told him I liked his glasses. I did. He nodded and smirked approval as I fired the shutter. The Shaman.

January 6th, 2021

The day was to begin with Trump’s rally at the White House, and the expectation was that it would then move to the front of The Capitol to protest the electoral certification proceeding inside. I decided that I’d go straight there to await whatever might occur after the President finished speaking.

It was a little after 11 am. The streets nearing the mall were lightly populated, and since Constitution was closed off, I could see an empty expanse between me and The Capitol dome. I wondered if I’d chosen the right place to stake out. A pair of women walking ahead of me stopped and asked if I’d take their picture with the building in the background. After I did, and requested another with my camera, they told me they were heading down to support President Trump.

I’d descended 9th street to intersect Constitution, so had several blocks to walk to my destination. I passed small groups of people on the curb gathered around tablets, portable TVs and phones, watching Trump’s speech. I thought: “Good, maybe people will show up here after”.

When I arrived at the west lawn of The Capitol I noted that there were only thin crowds in front of the bicycle fences and police. I decided to continue to the east face, as protest action often forms up more impressively in that smaller space between the dome and the Supreme Court. Moving up Independence I joined a steady flow of people carrying banners and flags, most decked out in either Trump or USA regalia. There was an air of excitement; I assumed because Trump’s speech had just ended. I hadn’t heard what was said.

At The Capitol east face the crowd was pressed up against the fencing, alternately pointing out the black SUVs that came and went, debating who would come out of each, and heckling the police guarding them. A row of porta-potties stood behind everyone on the edge of the lawn, attracting a long MAGA-emblazoned queue.

Diversity of geography was on display everywhere. Many wore their states on their jacket shoulders. Military banners flapped everywhere. Others carried local flags en masse or moved in color-matched groups. There was cultural diversity in the faces, too; though white was predominant, latino and asian were well represented in the melting pot, as well as a glimpse of black skin here and again.

Parents brought their kids, mostly teens. It was a mass teaching moment, a phenomenon I’ve seen a lot as a resident of DC. This one charged with a cause. The east lawn was alive with passion, but it was peaceful. My watch said 1:00.

I moved easily among the crowd for about an hour before hearing a murmur ripple through those who were watching their phones. I took a picture of one of them and asked what was going on. She said:

“The barricades have come down!”

I started moving.

Backtracking the same way I’d come up, I followed a new tide of people hurrying downhill toward the west face of The Capitol. As I crossed Independence I saw it. I saw a river of humanity, filling the wide avenue, overflowing the sidewalks and pouring onto the Capitol grounds where the barriers had been only an hour before. Every arm seemed to hold a Trump banner high.

A handful of Capitol Police were stopped in the middle of the street below me, certainly experiencing a different kind of awe.

I thought: “Oh My God this is big”. And I hadn’t yet seen what I would, which was the flood engulfing the whole lawn, right up to the building’s high steps, a scene my brain kept oddly — and repeatedly — telling me was not supposed to happen.

Crossing Independence Avenue again, toward the flow of people on the other side, I noticed the steel traffic barriers had been raised out of the pavement. And as I stepped onto the far curb I heard one police officer tell another, “stay together”, and those words rang in my head loudly as an alarm bell.

Spider sense told me not to follow the mass closer to The Capitol. Instead I worked my way around the rear, close to the Grant Memorial. The street between these statues and the lawn immediately in front of the building’s face was relatively clear, seeming to serve as an area for protesters to take a rest from the action or regroup. As I neared the memorial area a young man burst out of the crowd with a nightstick in his hand. A friend of his joined him and he brandished the stick triumphantly and declared he’d "taken it off a cop". Before I could raise my camera they plunged back into the fray.

Turning back to look at the far end of the Grant Memorial, where there should’ve been a bronze team of horses being led by Union soldiers, instead there was a mass of protesters. They’d climbed on top of the statues, waving their banners, and I saw a familiar shape form up. For the first time that day I ran.

Toward it.

God. “This is the perversion of Iwo Jima.”

It was 2:00. I stood there, in front of that surreal Grant scene, stunned at what was unfolding before me. I was certain there was a massive police or military action imminent, but couldn’t stop watching. My phone was blowing up in my pocket as friends and family who knew where I was watched their TVs. When I took it out of my pocket there was a text from my Mom: “Are you still there? They’ve locked down The Capitol”.

Boom. Boom. Concussion grenades began exploding at the front of the crowd. I could see smoke or gas floating up from the steps of the building. The Inauguration scaffolding’s white skin was torn away as I watched, by people climbing up to wave their Trump banners from the top. A man stood at the back of the main crowd facing those of us behind, exhorting us through a bullhorn: “Come forward! This is how you fight a war! You replace the people at the front!”

Protesters [are they still that?] who’d been gassed or pepper sprayed began appearing in front of me to tend to their eyes.

The Capitol was visibly overrun. I had no idea what was happening inside. Nobody seemed to be coming to help repulse what was now a mob. I turned and began moving away. As I walked, militia were passing me, smiling and taking pictures.

I thought, as my own tears threatened: “Is this it?” It was 2:41.