Original subtitles

- They broke through, it's on!

They broke through, it's on!

Oh yeah, we're all, what the (beep).

They broke through, it's on!

- An assault on liberty, and one of the darkest moments

in recent American history.

(crowd shouting)

- We're gonna beat the (beep) out of that guy.

The cops are beating the (beep) outta that guy.

(woman screaming)

- Really?

Stop hitting (indistinct)

(man spits)

(people shouting)

(tense dramatic music)

(people shouting)

- You better watch your head, (beep) (beep).

- Yeah!

- It's over!

You better run, cops!

(crowd shouting)

Oh (beep).

See how fast the cops turn around

once they (beep) saw the numbers game.

(indistinct shouting)

(banging)

(crowd shouting)

- Go upstairs!

(King Non Vs. America by King Non plays)

- January 6th, 2021,

an insurrection on a devastating scale occurred,

at the Capitol Building.

An angry mob broke through military barricades

and descended upon the establishment

of the US Congress.

(camera clicks)

For the first time ever,

guns were drawn on the Senate floor

and soon, at the shock and horror,

of the millions of Americans watching from home,

bullets rained and bodies fell.

Instances caught on camera,

forever immortalized in the minds of the youth.

Police being brutally bludgeoned to near death,

men equipped in riot gear,

stoned and flattened between doors.

Mayhem unfiltered,

live.

The revolution will not be televised.

- In the process of gaining our rightful place,

we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.

- But the insurrection,

different story.

- I will stand in recess until the call of the Chair.

- Protestors are in the building.

- Amongst the chaos and sea of angry vandals,

ex cons, rogue military agents,

foreign and domestic.

Press and media correspondence and small groups

infiltrated the action of the Capitol

and gained unprecedented access to visual data

and media files that was vital to uncovering the truth

behind the anarchy.

Some made it out okay.

Others, not so much.

- You're all frigging fake news.

You're all pieces of shit,

you're traitors to America.

- At the break of dawn,

on the eve of one of the most horrifying events

this station has ever witnessed,

our story begins,

on a jet plane during the peak of a global health crisis,

a pandemic of grave proportions.

We,

the brave filmmakers and independent frontline journalists,

as a team descend on the nation's Capitol,

despite a strict curfew enforced,

unofficial gag order

on all law personnel and government officials.

Intense rumors of imminent attacks throughout the city,

with no guarantee to make it out alive,

or find people even willing to speak.

The challenges were insurmountable.

- General law enforcement is on full alert

after warnings from intelligence officials

that another attack on the US Capitol could be imminent.

- And yet a call to action was felt

from deep within us all,

a need for a story to be told,

for art to be created.

- A city-wide curfew is in effect.

(woman shouting)

(indistinct) until 6am tomorrow morning.

You are currently in violation of the Mayor's curfew.

(dramatic music)

(bell rings)

- I've been here since I was 12 years old.

I grew up in this town.

What just happened on Wednesday was appalling to me.

I've always been an activist.

I worked for the DC public school system,

I worked for the federal government

and I was in the United States Army.

So I'm very hurt,

I'm very disappointed.

I gave a lot of my life to my country

because I believe in my country.

- We just came here from California

to show our support for Trump and we,

were wanting to protest the election.

And all I saw was good people,

sharing their food, their water,

families, children, everywhere.

And that was during the day,

then when I got back to my room,

I could not believe when I was hearing.

- We're visiting from Florida,

so we actually flew in the day before

the chaos at the Capitol happened.

It took a considerable period of time,

for law enforcement to show up.

If this had been a Black Lives Matter,

if this had been

a gathering of people who worshiped Allah,

this place would have been surrounded by the National Guard.

- It was a Black Lives Matter crowd,

I truly believe that it would have been,

it would have been,

oh my God, it would have been horrible.

It would have been bodies.

It would've just been,

it would have been way worse.

If that was us,

it would've been way more bloodshed,

it would have been way more bodies.

No doubt about it.

- [Crowd] George Floyd! George Floyd!

George Floyd! George Floyd!

Breonna Taylor!

- [Chant Leaders] Say her name!

- [Crowd] Breonna Taylor!

- [Chant Leaders] Say her name!

- [Crowd] Breonna Taylor!

- What happened to the Black Lives Matter?

They criminalized it.

Remember the Black Panthers,

they criminalize them,

and none of them was climbing over the fence

of Capitol Hill.

They weren't threatening the government,

they wasn't trying to overthrow the democracy.

(crowd shouting)

- Knock, knock.

We're here.

- Where are they?

- While we're here, we might as well set up a government.

(police car siren)

- The juxtaposition with the

Black Lives Matter protests last summer is astounding.

- Right here.

Police officers starting to move some of the crowd.

Sadly, a man was just knocked off his feet.

- Glad to see you guys,

you guys are fucking patriots.

Look at this guy, he's got, covered in blood.

God bless you.

(indistinct chattering)

- Are you good, sir?

You need medical attention?

- I'm good, thank you.

- All right.

- I will caveat this and say that I was,

I was not anywhere near the capital protestors,

but being in this area and knowing how secure that it is

just like, on normal days when other like,

First Amendment activities that I participated in myself,

I know that if anyone suspected

that any building could be a target

or any statue could be a target,

there are barricades blocks out.

Cops, you know, suited up like they're going to war.

And so from what I saw on TV,

things were just a lot more lax,

in a way that I would not have expected,

having participated in protests here before.

- These are people who everybody know,

whenever they come together,

it's always problem, they're problematic.

They come with the guns and their swast-,

that's their swastikas and all,

this is trouble.

How dare they come to the nation's Capitol

and go to the Capitol,

and there's not enough law enforcement there to stop it?

- For some reason, I just don't understand why.

When it's anything that pertains to Black Lives Matter,

people just get in an uproar.

We came out here, when was that?

When did we come out? After,

- July.

- In July.

In the summertime, they were out heavy,

right after the Black Lives Matter,

they boarded up the buildings.

But when they had the Trump rally,

was anything boarded up?

No, they weren't.

They went right to the Capitol.

They worked, they busted their way up.

I have no idea why the Capitol police were not readily out.

Why did they not have the National Guard?

Any of that.

- They said they were going to storm the Capitol.

I mean, and,

I guess the Capitol police thought it was empty threats

and refused back up for the National Guard.

A lack of structure, if you ask me.

- The US has been playing it that,

it was primarily the Capitol Police,

they were out-manned somehow, they weren't,

they weren't equipped because they were,

they didn't have their riot gear or anything,

like they did with, you know,

the Black Lives Matter protests,

when they were guarding up at the same time,

you know, this past year.

There was a call to the National Guard,

apparently the DC Guard,

Guard in DC is controlled by, not by the mayor,

but by Trump and Pence.

They were calling them and they got no response.

It was I think, it was Chris Holland

from, Representative in Maryland,

called Governor Larry Hogan

to pull up the Maryland Guard,

but by that time, they were coming down here late afternoon,

it was already over, you know, too late at that point.

- I don't know,

I don't think any of our team knows exactly why

the US Capitol was not protected and how this,

treacherous mob was able to break through.

Under Federal law, the,

the Mayor of the district of Columbia

does not have authority over the Guard.

And we must receive approval from the Secretary of Defense.

We were repeatedly denied approval to do so.

- Then you got leadership,

the president, then his family,

you got his lawyer, everybody out there called to arms.

Excuse me, this is America.

I'm African-American,

you would never have let me do,

what I've seen done here.

- Yes, the response was a thousand times differently,

had been someone of a different race

or different religious belief.

That it's, that's why I say it's so blatant.

There's no way you can continue to turn a blind eye and say,

oh, well, no, it's not like that.

Yes, it is!

- Well, I'm pretty sure that Trump did antagonize it,

but he did not call for that.

I'm not, I'm not sure any American would call for that

and then still call himself an American.

- We have hundreds of thousands of people here,

and I just want them to be recognized.

(crowd cheers)

These people are not going to take it any longer.

We will never give up,

we will never concede, it doesn't happen.

You don't concede when there's theft involved.

(crowd cheers)

- Over the next 10 days,

we get to see the machines that are crooked,

the ballots that are fraudulent.

And if we're wrong,

we will be made fools of.

But if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail.

(crowd cheers)

So,

let's have trial by combat.

(crowd cheers)

- [Crowd] USA! USA! USA! USA!

(people shouting)

- Well, that was very, very wrong,

especially to work in our sacred place,

the Capitol.

They have no right over that.

So the president must be punished.

That guy's wrong.

He's the one that instigated all that.

- We came to support our president

and we know that the election was stolen.

So that's what we were here for just to protest that.

And next thing we know, you know,

we're being called domestic terrorists

by the so-called president elect or whatever.

And so, you know,

- And mobsters and rioters.

- And you know, let's not forget that a,

a decorated veteran lost her life.

And you know, so.

- Was killed in cold blood.

(people shouting)

(gunshot)

- Oh, oh!

- Medic, medic!

(people shouting)

- I can't believe how we're called mobsters,

but the actual people that are burning down our cities and

rioting and stealing,

not one of them has gotten shot and,

this patriot,

four year,

- 14 year veteran.

- 14 year veteran for,

- From San Diego.

- Two time tour,

gets shot.

And no tear gas, no tasing,

just gets shot in cold blood.

And that's my take.

- Storming is the right word,

another word that I see, not for the action itself,

but its meaning, is sedition.

I think that's a very appropriate word.

- It got out of hand, there was a few bad apples.

I do not believe that was an angry mob,

in a hole,

but I do believe

that that was planned from,

the people in the mob,

the small select few

and the angry mob, so to speak.

- [Crowd] Defend your liberty!

Defend your constitution!

Defend your liberty!

- I actually did walk up by the Capitol Building,

while it was going on.

If you were to look at it from the road on the backside,

which I was standing on,

a lot of people kneeling around,

not a whole lot.

I'm sure it felt a lot different,

once you got up the top of the steps.

- We were, where,

where they all went to Washington,

we stayed back where,

where Trump was speaking at the White House.

- We will not let them silence your voices,

we're not gonna let it happen.

- We stayed in that area,

then at one point, everybody took off to the Capitol.

And at that point is when everything happened.

I did hear that there were bricks

laid out for people,

and I do believe that, that,

that was those Antifa buses that they said were there.

- But I have heard that they were placed there,

beforehand to be found.

- And I do believe that that was planned.

- I had actually just saw a video

where they were pretty much letting them in

and they let them into the doors,

which I find very strange.

I don't know why,

why they would let them get that far.

That's the question I've been asking.

- I do see the video of the police officers

are opening the gates.

I did see videos of the policemen taking selfies.

Like right now, I want to interview,

I want to talk to a police officer so bad,

but I'm just afraid.

But these guys felt that it was pretty cool

to just go up during, committing a crime

and take a selfie.

That's the part I don't understand,

how they were allowed to commit a crime

in a federal building and nothing happened to them.

- Oh, the police were opening the barricades

and letting them in.

The police were actually letting people in.

- Yeah.

- At some point,

some points at the barricade was pushed in,

and some points the police was just opening it up.

- Yeah.

- That's why I say,

I think this was planned and pretty much I felt like,

sheep to be slaughtered and like, we were planned,

we were played and we played right into it.

- You know, what's funny,

cause this is one of those circumstances where

this doesn't happen often,

but I actually have some sympathy

for the cops that day.

You know, I see lots of people talking about,

they didn't like, you know, put up a fight or what have you,

this is speculation.

But if I were to guess that the reasons for the lax security

is probably because of bias from

the leadership of the, you know, security forces.

That probably explains it more than anything else.

More than just like the rank and file,

who were there on the streets.

- There were so many, the poor cops,

I mean the Capitol Police,

you know, you got one, one, one cop for maybe 10, 20 people,

because there were about 10,000 down there

or something like that.

You've got a one-to-one ratio, you know,

that's hard, hard enough to hold back.

So it's like one,

one to, one to five or one to 10 is impossible,

without any, without any weapons because I,

I'm assuming they wanted that,

they were under the orders to be like,

non-lethal.

There was nothing that we could really do about it.

They were getting just beat back by sticks and you know,

whatever, all the stuff that the, the rioters were carrying.

- And when I try to exercise empathy,

and I think about how,

how little, how few of them there were,

versus how many angry and potentially violent

protestors there were,

I do have some sympathy for just like being like, yo,

like we can't like, if this turns into a fight,

we can't win it.

- You better run, cops!

- You better (bleep) run!

(people shouting)

- I just, I would not have wanted

to be in the cops' situation that day.

- Yeah, we just, we just reacted appropriately,

just took directions.

I didn't have any direct reaction.

- I call on President Trump

to go on national television now,

to fulfill his oath

and defend the constitution

and demand an end to this siege.

- I know your pain,

I know you're hurt.

We had an election that was stolen from us.

It was a landslide election,

and everyone knows it,

especially the other side,

but you have to go home now.

We have to have peace.

So go home,

we love you.

You're very special.

You've seen what happens,

you see the way others are treated that are,

so bad and so evil.

I know how you feel.

- Our regularly scheduled program will resume,

- I'm Muriel Bowser,

I'm the Mayor of Washington DC.

I am here at the headquarters

of DC's Metropolitan Police Department.

This afternoon,

I announced a citywide curfew for the District of Columbia,

beginning at 6:00PM this evening,

going until 6:00AM tomorrow morning.

During the curfew, no one is allowed

to be outside in public places.

The unlawful behavior inside

the United States Capitol Building,

I continue to urge all Washingtonians

to stay home and stay calm.

And if you see something, say something,

but above all stay home.

- A citywide curfew of 6:00PM has been enforced.

All pedestrians are forced to stay inside.

Which means only ones out at night,

are the ones looking for trouble.

Police, security, barricades

fill the streets of DC.

We do our best to ignore the subtle stench of bacon

and remnants of tear gas that engulf the nation's heart.

The ominous glow of a full moon lit our path

and the truth revealed our convictions.

With each step our paranoia grew,

an uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched.

A silly notion when you think about it,

given all the events that just occurred,

of course we were being watched.

We were there to get answers,

to see how something like this could ever happen.

And if it was just a warning for worse things to come.

- What would you label what happened?

- Definitely not a political (indistinct)

- Okay.

In terms of, I know as a black cop, right?

You face a lot on both sides.

You know, what are your thoughts on the idea,

this was an example of bias.

These crowds if you're, well,

people believe if there were black people storming it,

it would have been far higher death rate,

but because it wasn't, there was less.

Do you have a comment on that

or do you have an opinion on that?

- No, no I don't have an opinion on that.

- But you have heard of it?

- Yes, I heard that.

- Okay.

- I would venture that,

there are those who are somewhat shocked.

The irony of that is beyond description

because four years

of someone validating bad behavior,

someone validating that it's okay

to hate,

to discriminate,

to only focus on what's important to you

and refusing to see how your choices,

your behaviors affect the greater good,

and then it comes to this

and for people to be astonished that it took place,

I find that to be beyond ironic.

- Well, we have to set an example.

He is the leader,

he cannot do what he did.

Okay, the whole world is watching.

So they are,

they're preaching democracy from here

to the third world,

especially in Africa.

If they do the mess and they don't do nothing about it,

then the whole world will say okay,

so where's the democracy that they are preaching?

- And right now, I think everybody who went over to nine,

going to the Capitol and went up into,

past the security barriers,

I think everybody should get 10 years starting,

just going up on the grounds.

That's not that, we shouldn't allow this.

They don't get to soft pedal this,

they need to come down.

And these people need to get justice for what they've done,

when they went into, into the Capitol.

They went in with guns, explosives.

They were saying they were going to kill Nancy Pelosi.

Excuse me!

How much more violent is that?

(people shouting)

- Start making a list,

put all those names down!

And we start hunting them down,

one by one!

(people shouting)

- This is not America.

- This was like a flashpoint moment, I felt.

It wasn't like, oh, they've been protesting all week,

or not even, you know, like a continuous buildup.

It was like flashpoint.

Got there,

got far too close and things got out of hand.

- I think they're just trying to get people scared,

and you know, they're gonna try to blame, you know,

that whole incident to really,

if you look at it to just try to take our rights away,

I mean, they go, what they're doing, you know,

they're barricading everything,

making us look like we came here to,

I don't know,

- As rioters.

- You know, as rioters and they're calling us all kinds of,

you know, it's awful.

- With children,

lot of children all around

and they busted a 15 year old little boy's head,

the police did.

- Wow.

(dramatic music)

- We saw Antifa buses.

We saw a man with horns,

that's a professional paid,

enticing the police.

And then he took off and ran behind the people,

when the people were getting tear gassed,

after he pissed off the police.

- I feel like,

in this day and age we have professional,

I don't want to call them protesters,

more of rioters, professional rioters,

that go from city to city to city.

Those people that did that were not DC residents.

They may be residents from Minnesota,

or Minneapolis or wherever,

these other riots have been happening.

But Trump supporters,

they probably were,

but that does not represent Trump supporters as a whole.

I actually support Biden,

so that's just my point of view on it.

- Extremism, I think, in all forms is a bad thing,

whether it be on the left or the right.

And I think over the past year,

we've seen it on both sides,

and (indistinct).

I think social media has a lot to answer for,

just the different platforms

and the different information that people are getting.

And it's segregating and pushing people apart.

- I've been in DC since 1955.

I've seen a lot of changes,

I was here during the riots,

but I have never been so disheartened as I am now.

When I see what's going on

coming from top leadership, nothing,

but we've had four years of a nightmare

where the truth is overshadowed by lies

and people believe it.

And nobody's doing anything to pull us together.

Everybody's got their own agenda.

There's too much politicking in everything now.

There's a right and a wrong,

there's a law and order.

Ever since we've had this administration,

I'm so appalled at a lot of Republicans

that I truly love and respect,

like General Powell, he's one of them.

But to see the Republican Party just stand by

and see this country totally destroyed

from the inside because they didn't do

what they needed to do,

I'm just, I can't believe it.

I remember when I was a kid walking around and when I saw

the signs in God, we trust and justice for all,

I believed it.

I'm going to always believe in my country,

I want to always believe that America

is the greatest place on earth to live,

but America has got a long way to go.

- I think people who didn't think, oh, well, no,

I'm not racist, or, oh no, this problem doesn't exist,

I think since it's right in their face

and there wasn't anyone there who had

more melanin than them,

they were forced to face the fact that

even though you don't see color, even though no,

I just believe in conservative Christian values,

there's people preaching the same Jesus you're preaching

and look how they behave.

So I think right now it's a hush

because they have to face the fact

that everything you wanted to be blind to,

is right there in your face.

- It has always been there.

We just had someone in the White House who said,

it's okay to be that way to be open about it.

Regardless of what anybody says,

this country was built on biased.

It was built on privilege.

It was built on, I'm going to take this from you

because it benefits me,

even though you're at a disadvantage.

It is not a country built on Christian values.

The people who came here perhaps were looking for

an opportunity to worship as they see fit,

but then that quickly deteriorated when the wealth

and the privilege that this country offered,

got set out to everybody else.

Other countries realized what was available,

just like they went to the continent of Africa

and breaked into everything and made it beautiful.

They saw the ability and the things that were

amazing about this country

and the people who were indigenous here,

suffered the cost for it.

- And today going through, it's very quiet.

- Yeah.

- Very still,

sparse.

- Well, I feel like everybody's on edge.

Maybe even looking over their shoulder a little bit.

Not, you know,

not to know what's going to happen next

or anything like that.

- It's just been tense.

- It's just an eerie feeling when you come here

because you can't,

you just can't get close.

Even here now, if you look behind us,

just in the summertime,

you could walk past here.

It's all gated off.

You can't even get close to the White House.

It's not what I'm used to from coming to DC.

This is definitely a different decent.

- I just think they want people to be afraid,

but look around, I mean, it's, the city's calm.

It was that same the day after we were walking around,

you know, sightseeing or whatever.

- No steamed windows.

- I think they're just trying to get people scared.

(dramatic tense music)

- It's definitely calmed down.

This is actually the third night

I've walked down through DC,

I live over Northeast.

First off, seeing the barriers around the Capitol

was quite upsetting, you know?

Cause I love walking through those grounds

and it'd be sad to see that taken away from us.

Now you can't even to walk all around it.

You just feel separated from it.

Yeah.

Pretty iconic building in this country.

And it's great that you can be in there

and walk around it and get a feel for it and now you can't,

so it's a bit sad.

- I feel a very still calm,

very still but it's tenuous.

And it, to answer your question about fear,

I'm not fearful.

I serve a, an amazing God.

And he tells me not to fear.

That means to be aware,

to use the resources that are available to you,

don't be foolish and don't tempt his grace,

but no, I'm not fearful.

- We know we've got God on our side,

so we're not worried.

There's nothing to be scared of,

nothing to fear.

So we just came really to enjoy the sights and,

and take a look at the, the monuments.

(drilling)

- You have a huge amount of blues out here,

as you do every day.

- Right.

- But I think the city is definitely (indistinct).

It's been very challenging.

It's been a tough year,

it's been a tough many months.

And just having a team to focus on what's important,

focus on the problems at hand,

focus on the people to help,

and we'll be fine.

(King Non Vs. America by King Non plays)