They’ll Say the Cops Did a Great Job; They Always Do

Having had been in a number of “emergency” situations on Capitol Hill during my decade there, I feel safe saying I never felt so unsafe as when the pumped-up, tattooed, shorts-wearing, military assault rifle-toting Capitol Hill cops were trying to keep us safe. Like the time we were told a dangerous criminal with a gun was roaming the halls of Cannon Office Bldg and we were ordered to…wait for it: all leave our safe, locked offices and gather together in the main lobby of the building, fully exposed to the supposed assailant!

Of course we were the kind of office that questioned authority, so we kept our door locked, shut off the lights, and pretended the room was empty when the cops came pounding on the door. It made no sense. It turned out the cops manning the metal detectors were too busy chatting up the cute female staffers to notice that someone had walked through with a “gun” — which, being the day before Halloween, turned out to be a toy, some staffer’s stupid idea of a costume prop.

The evacuation plan in the first few years after 9/11 was practiced with some regularity, keeping us away from our jobs for hours at a time. Whenever the House was out of session, we could look forward to another evacuation drill, where the cops had the chance to yell at us to “KEEP ON THAT SIDE OF THE STREET!!!” as they fingered their assault rifles.

The evacuation plan never made sense to us: in case al-Qaeda was coming in for a bombing run of the Capitol complex, we were several thousand of us to assemble all together in the park right outside the building. We even had Office Emergency Coordinators who were supposed to show us how to grab the “Go-Kits” (still don’t know what those were, but I am sure they did not include anything really useful in a crisis…like a cute St. Bernard with a barrel of brandy around his neck).

Our Emergency Coordinator was supposed to carry a clipboard and make sure we all congregated like good lemmings with the other staffers, thereby making a highly tempting target for the imaginary terrorists waiting to pounce. We teased her but she didn’t want the job either. Fortunately, there were also cafes and other places for refreshment in close vicinity on Capitol Hill while the others were calling the roll in the park.

In perfect third world fashion, the heavily armed Capitol Hill cops would stand around with their military assault weapons, enjoying their ability to bark out an order.

So today what the media claims was a mentally unbalanced woman drove her car erratically around the White House and was then chased by dozens of police vehicles who seemed incapable of stopping her despite millions of dollars spent on fancy barricades that were supposed to stop a determined terrorist with presumably a better plan than just driving around real fast. Up to to Capitol Hill, round and round the fountain at the bottom of the Capitol building.

She seemed panicked to have all those police cars following her so she drove faster, around and around.

So…the cops just started shooting her! But she had a baby in the car with her. Too bad. Thankfully the baby was not killed in the hail of police bullets in one of the most densely populated parts of the Capitol.

Already the damage control is being laid on thick:

“The security perimeters worked,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Thursday evening. “They did exactly what they were supposed to do.”

Oh really? What did they do? How did they work?

UPDATE: They kind of worked — on the cop cars!

No one will ever second guess the real police state that the Capitol Hill Police has created. They are always “doing a great job.” As arrogant and self-important as the staffers were, they all loved being yelled at by big bullying cops. It made them feel in danger and thus important. They love that police state.

EDIT: I added “what the media claim was a deranged woman.” There is no proof of this at this point and the corporate media is not a trustworthy source.

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8:06 pm on October 3, 2013