By Bill Laitner and Omar Abdel-Baqui
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Like countless Americans astonished by Wednesday’s scenes of mob rule at the U.S. Capitol, Michigan law enforcement experts said they were stunned by what they saw on newscasts.
And one nationally prominent law enforcer said he was surprised by what seemed to be a tactical failure by federal security planners.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said that Washington’s security officers knew to expect a large crowd, and that when protesters began to overpower the guards, standard procedure would be to have additional officers and special equipment ready to send in as reinforcements. Bouchard has overseen managing crowds as large as 1.5 million at the annual Woodward Dream Cruise.
“Obviously, in Washington, they had clear warning that something was going to happen. They’re a town that’s used to very large gatherings and protests. I’m surprised that they didn’t seem to have a second layer of response ready to respond if certain outer layers of security were breached,” Bouchard said Wednesday night.
“Typically, when you have intelligence that a very large group might be coming, you should have resources standing up, equipped and off to the side, and not seen. We do that routinely at the Dream Cruise. You see a lot of officers up and down Woodward, but then we also have a huge amount of additional personnel out of sight, and very specific tactical resources ready for the different kinds of scenarios that we could imagine,” including a terrorist event, he said.
For situations like Wednesday’s threatening mob at the Capitol Building, “You should have rings of layers that get increasingly tough to breach,” Bouchard said. Washington’s security officers provide that every four years at the presidential inauguration, “and they do it very very well; the fencing and the physical barriers reflect that. You can’t get from one area to a closer area unless you have the credentials,” he said.
Following Wednesday’s mob takeover of the Capitol building, Bouchard said there was sure to be a detailed investigation.
“Absolutely, there’s going to be a very deep dive, and then what’s called an after-action report. Certainly, as an executive board member of the Major County Sheriffs of America (a nationwide association, of which Bouchard is vice president for government affairs, and a former president), I expect that we will be getting a detailed after-action brief of what happened, what went wrong and why,” he said.
“Our principal task in law enforcement is to protect lives, but also property, so there, obviously, will be an investigation to determine the breakdown that allowed the building itself to be breached,” Bouchard added.
He said it was likely that lessons will be learned and security training improved as a result of Wednesday’s chaotic scenes.
“Prior to Oklahoma (and the bombing there in 1995 by a rental truck loaded with explosives), you didn’t have vehicular barriers. After that, barriers evolved,” leading to the concrete blocks that prevent access by potential vehicle bombers to key buildings in Washington DC and elsewhere, Bouchard said. Wednesday’s mayhem will become a lesson taught in criminal justice classes and likely lead to changes in security training and planning, he said.
Despite apparently being overpowered, television coverage showed how desperately and admirably the federal officers tried to hold off the mob, said Bob Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, and the former police chief in Livonia.
Stevenson said he could not comment on whether security efforts were mismanaged.
“I just appreciate all the men and women I saw on the front lines, trying their best to maintain law and order and keep everybody safe,” he said. Typically, civil disturbances start with a few instigators, Stevenson said.
“Somebody gets the idea they’re going to be anonymous” if they start getting destructive and violent, and their actions incite the crowd to join in, he said.
A spokesman for the Michigan State Police said he could not discuss the planning or tactics used Wednesday in Lansing to control a crowd at a peaceful protest held noon to 2 p.m. at the Capitol Building. But Lt. Mike Shaw said that State Police are used to managing such protests.
“We plan for these events, and we ramp up when we see the need to do so,” Shaw said. “We’ve been monitoring what’s going on in Washington,” although he declined to comment on whether he felt there had been a security failure in planning or execution. He would only say that Michigan State Police “have no problem” with peaceful protests, but don’t hesitate “to take appropriate action” if participants start getting destructive or violent.
A Lansing-area lawyer blamed Wednesday’s mob rule in Washington on what he called Michigan’s lenient treatment of similar protesters at demonstrations in Lansing last year.
Jamie White, a lawyer in Okemos, said the violent and destructive protesters in Washington “are essentially the same people who came to Michigan’s Capitol in April, fully armed and going nose-to-nose with state troopers, and hovering over and intimidating people in our state capitol,” White said. Soon after those protests, two of those involved were exposed as being part of “the life-threatening plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer,” he said.
“We had an opportunity to stop this when we saw it happen in Michigan, but we failed. There should be no room for this level of leniency and deference we’ve given to armed and dangerous protesters” at Michigan’s Capitol Building, White said.
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