FLASHBACK: January 6th, Round II: Federal police lure aspiring insurrectionists to invade wooden, 2-D replica of US Capitol
Plan fails as real Capitol also invaded
Today is January 6th. To commemorate, here is an article originally published in January 2022, one year after the riots at the United States Capitol.
Anyone who believed the January 6th, 2021, US Capitol attack would be a one-time occurrence was proved wrong this month as, shockingly, it happened again. This time, however, Capitol police were better prepared. Or so they thought.
As intelligence reports poured in that showed an anniversary invasion was imminent, federal police held a secret meeting to develop a mitigation plan. Progress was slow initially. After 90 minutes, the only idea the group had raised was to simply mow everyone down with machine guns. After much back-and-forth, they decided against it after considering the potential PR hassle such action might create.
By far the worst idea came about two hours later when a catered pasta-and-breadsticks lunch was wheeled into the conference room, rendering the group intellectually useless. So they sleepily agreed to adjourn and reconvene the following morning.
The second day of brainstorming fared no better. Frustrated, Capitol Chief of Police J. Thomas Manger pointedly asked the group, “What exactly did you all do last night? Since it’s pretty clear no one spent their evening thinking of creative ideas to save the country.”
Officer Vince McBride, growing irritated by Manger’s self-righteous tone, rolled his eyes and snapped, “You want to know what I did last night? I’ll tell you exactly what I did. I went back to my hotel, ordered way too much room service and watched ‘Blazing Saddles.’ And I laughed my ass off. That’s what I did last night.”
“Oh, I love ‘Blazing Saddles,’” one officer said, clasping his hands together excitedly.
“Agreed, great movie!” said another. “No way they’d make that film these days. Shame.”
The group went around the room sharing their favorite moments of Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic. Twenty minutes later they reached the final scene, in which residents of Rock Ridge, knowing their town is about to come under attack, construct a series of fake, two-dimensional buildings in the form of a town mimicking the real thing. The charging attackers, of course, fall for the trick.
Once the laughter among the seasoned law enforcement professionals had died down, their heads snapped upward and their eyes grew wide. An idea was born. Later that day, they set about building a full-scale, 2-D replica of the US Capitol in a pasture just beyond Arlington National Cemetery.
The Department of Transportation created temporary road signs to direct invaders to the faux site.
One sign read, “Overthrow US Government: Next Right,” followed a mile up the road by another stating, “Hurry! Congress is in Session.”
Federal police even hired residents of a local nursing home to pose as politicians, as they were the only population in the metro area that rivaled the average age of the US Senate. “There was one 86-year-old woman who offered to volunteer to help save the republic,” said Manger. “It broke my heart when I had to turn her away for being too young.”
By the morning of January 6th, 2022, everything appeared to be in place. The spiders had spun their intricate web. The only thing left to do was to wait for unsuspecting pests to fly into it. Upon entrance, they would be arrested and jailed, and democracy would be saved.
There was just one problem, which would not expose itself until it was too late. On the morning of January 5th, Chief Manger sent an email to the select officers he wanted present at the constructed site. Obviously some needed to stay behind to protect the real Capitol while mayhem broke loose in the pasture.
Unbeknownst to the chief, he had accidentally clicked on the wrong email list, one labeled “Capitol Police – ALL.” This directed every officer to the 2-D building, leaving the real Capitol – the one containing the collection of principled intellectual heavyweights we call Congress – completely unguarded.
A dozen or so individuals did storm through the artificial building and were promptly arrested. No nursing home residents were harmed, although one was mistakenly placed in handcuffs but released in time to watch that evening’s syndication of “Columbo.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of men and women seeking to overturn the 2020 election strolled into the historic structure unscathed. In fact, some even expressed disappointment that the martial arts skills they had trained so hard for turned out to be unnecessary.
That is where things stand to this day: Those who invaded the fake Capitol are in custody; those who invaded the real Capitol are freely roaming the halls. While food supplies will eventually run out, the cafeteria should still have enough to last another couple weeks.
Insurrectionists are locked in a standoff with federal law enforcement. The US military has circled the Capitol with tanks and expressed openness to blowing up the building if those inside do not surrender, triggering flashbacks of the government’s 1993 siege in Waco, Texas.
In a rare showing of bipartisanship, this plan has received near-unanimous opposition among the Democrats and Republicans still trapped inside.
“We want to assure the American people that blowing up the US Capitol and thus killing every member of the legislative branch is a last resort,” said Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby. “But at some point, we will need to take drastic action to preserve the American system of government.”