Former FBI agent on Capitol riot: Do we need ‘another Oklahoma City’ to get the message?
Former FBI particular agent Erroll Southers informed CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that the conduct of some regulation enforcement throughout Wednesday’s siege on the U.S. Capitol invoked recollections of Charlottesville and Kenosha.
“It invokes for me memories back to 2017 and Charlottesville when one of the persons part of the Unite the Right movement discharged a firearm and walked past the police, said Southers, who is currently the Director of Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies at the University of Southern California. “It brings again photos of Kenosha after that particular person killed two folks and slung his AR-15 over his shoulder and walked by the cops who sat him down and received him some water. It’s very clear what is going on on right here.”
Police response to Wednesday’s siege on the U.S. Capitol is coming under growing fire. Critics include President-elect Joe Biden, who called the treatment of rioters a double standard.
“No one can inform me that if it had been a gaggle of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they would not have been handled very, very otherwise from the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said. “We all know that is true and it’s unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama wrote that Wednesday’s Capitol riot “made it painfully clear that sure Americans are, in actual fact, allowed to denigrate the flag and image of our nation … they’ve simply received to look the proper approach.”
The FBI produced a report that warned about the infiltration of white nationalists in local law enforcement in 2006. Southers said that the siege of the U.S. Capitol illustrates the situation has since been exacerbated.
“It’s raised its ugly head once more … and confirmed what we thought 15 years is even worse,” Southers stated.
A Department of Homeland Security and an FBI assessment from last year showed that racist terror groups are displaying unparalleled activity in the modern era. Southers told host Shepard Smith that the data “clearly articulated that the menace is from the proper.”
The FBI confirmed that it disposed of two explosive devices, including a “pipe bomb like gadget” at the RNC headquarters on Wednesday, and Southers explained the message those devices sent.
“I feel again to 1995, do we have to have buildings come down as they did in Oklahoma City for us to get the message?” Southers said. “Yesterday, thank god, the constructing didn’t come down.”
