In Graham v Connor and Tennessee v Garner the Supreme Court said that lethal force cannot be used to protect property. Lethal force can only be used to prevent death or serious physical harm to yourself or others, or to prevent the escape of a person who poses a serious, ongoing threat (e.g., an active shooter who just killed a bunch of people running off with his rifle).

So, it would be criminal for an officer to shoot someone trying to enter the capital unless s/he reasonably believed they posed such a threat. Any order given to an officer that contradicted these principles could be deemed unlawful, and would subject them to criminal and civil liability. I think this is why you saw the 3 cops who left their post in the Ashley Babbit video. I’m obviously speculating, but They may have believed that their only way to stop them was to use lethal force, and they didn’t want to be put in the positioned killing people to prevent them from entering the building (plus, there were way more terrorists there than they had bullets, so when they ran out they would’ve been fucked anyway).

The biggest problem with the police response in my mind was simply a lack of foresight and planning. They should have called in for mutual aid as soon as Trump said “be there on January 6th, it’s gonna be wild”. All those officers were put in such a horrible position. The video of the cop getting crushed in the door while having his gas mask ripped off broke my heart. Getting pepper sprayed is one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had, and they we’re getting doused. Then these pieces of shit, who claim to be the only one’s who support police, literally murdered Officer Sitnick for doing his duty. I blame the Trump admin who is reported to have directed the pentagon to block the deployment of the national guard, and anyone else who stood in the way of an appropriate police presence for everything that we knew would occur that day.

And as a side note, I did see some very troubling videos of police. There was one where a cop was waving people forward that I would certainly like investigated. And reports of Seattle cops who participated are the most troubling of all. They need to be rooted out, fired and charged. It is well known that white supremacist organizations try to recruit within the ranks of police and military, and they pose as much of a danger to our nation as any other terrorist, if not more so.