After more than an hour shooting tasers, throwing rubber-pellet grenades, shooting chunks of rubber baton, and tossing a smoke canister at protesters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a District of Columbia police officer concluded that the show of force did little but enrage the crowd.
Nearly two hours of newly-released public body camera footage from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC) Officer Daniel Thau shows how conditions along the police barricades on the west side of the Capitol deteriorated after Thau and colleagues began using munitions and chemicals on the crowds.
The heavy police response at the Capitol began before then-President Donald Trump had finished speaking at the Ellipse, a 45-minute walk away. Most of the huge crowds had yet to start the trek to the Capitol….