WASHINGTON (KYW Newsradio) — As the curfew in Washington, D.C. ended on Thursday, the only sign of the previous day’s mayhem were the National Guard troops guarding barricades at every possible approach to the Capitol. Gone were the Trump flag-waving, red-hatted protesters who had been cleared from the building and persistently backed away from the building by lines of riot gear-clad police officers.
They’d harassed the officers by bullhorn as they were moved away — “We were peaceful; it was you guys who killed a woman” — and some had persisted at the barricade line late into the night, but eventually gave up or got arrested.
“I just got caught up in the bliss of it,” said Gary Phanuf of Staten Island, explaining why police had carted him away for violating curfew. “Well, the next thing I know I’m being told, ‘move,’ and then there was rudeness and I respond to rudeness in kind.”
Phanuf was a lonely figure when he returned briefly in the morning. A jogger ran by him and said loudly through his mask, “You lost!”
As the day wore on, more of the president's supporters returned singly or in small groups but left without incident.
They were outnumbered by Washington residents returning to their daily routine.
Scott Wahrenbrock was out on his daily jog and tried to engage some Trump loyalists in conversation. It didn’t get very far.
“They said it (the insurrection) was a false flag operation,” Wahrenbrock said. “So you say ‘do you disavow it?’ and they’re, ‘oh, no, no. It was great.’ Yeah, false flag, everything is fake. You can’t talk to them.”
He said he's worried that there would be no consequences, inviting other similar revolts.
“Congress doesn’t have a spine,” he said. “This whole idea, let’s let this kind of blow over, has been going on for four years.”
A federal worker on his way to his office stopped to take a picture of the damage to the scaffold construction, underway for the inauguration, on the Capitol steps. He didn’t want to give his name but said he would go by “Da Pidge” (like short for pigeon). He was clearly angry.
“They were literally directed what to do and they did it. To me it’s a coup,” he said. “All those white folks that had the confederate flag — traitors. The guy who stole Pelosi’s mail, lock him up.”
Da Pidge said the melee was shocking, not just for the boldness of the mob, but the reaction of the Capitol police.
“If you cross these barriers on a normal day in D.C., you would get shot,” he said, “not just this building but any federal building in Washington, no questions asked. So the fact that the police just let them in, I thought they would have mowed them down. I was like, ‘oh, they’re all gonna die, this is really crazy.’ I was shocked they didn’t all die.”
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That, he said, is proof of a double standard.
“I have friends, little white girls who got clubbed, maced, beaten, big Black guys who got beaten in the summer and now it’s like, ‘Hey, guys, come on in.’ They not only stormed the Capitol building, they followed the velvet rope. They thought this was sweet, this is like a tour. It was wild to me just how polite white people are to white people. It’s the same reason you never see Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same room — the police are right there. And the sad part is, that was kind of cool, chillin’ in the Capitol. I would love to do that. I also know my mother would not recognize my dead body because my body would be shredded asunder.”
Da Pidge was laughing but he was not amused.
Horetta Pearson, on the other hand, was close to tears. She’s lived in the District for 50 years and said she’s seen it all — parades, protests, the good times, the sad times. But the Capitol siege was something new.
“It’s too bad that one side of the equation is so angry when the other side is celebrating,” she said. “I think if there’s an opportunity to sit down and examine the truth that we can get some resolve here.”