After a small, peaceful protest at the Ohio Statehouse on Sunday, Gov. Mike DeWine says security levels will remain high in Columbus for Wednesday’s presidential inauguration.
DeWine praised demonstrators for exercising their free speech rights in a way “that respected our Constitution and our more than 150-year-old state capitol building.”
But he said there remain concerns over potential violence in the coming days.
Low-key protests were common across the U.S. on Sunday as law enforcement braced for big rallies and possible violence from supporters of President Donald Trump who believe his false claims that he won the presidential election.
Many rallies had more law enforcement than demonstrators. In states from Maine to Mississippi to Nevada, there were no far-right demonstrators at all. Protesters in Kentucky, New Hampshire and Utah were armed but peaceful.
Washington State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis said there might have been a cooling off across the country after a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop the Electoral College certification, leaving a Capitol Police officer and four others dead.
GOPUSA Editor’s Note: Please keep in mind that this is a mainstream media story with the typical lean to the left. We publish the story for the purpose of informing our readers.
He said law enforcement will not let its guard down yet.
“The only thing that we have in abundance today is uncertainty,” he said. “For us, in law enforcement, we simply have to be ready for anything. We can’t allow ourselves to be dismissive, we can’t allow ourselves to be alarmist. We just have to be ready for whatever might be.”
Some of the protests at statehouses have begun breaking up after drawing only modest crowds — in most places, no more than a couple dozen demonstrators.
Officials had fortified statehouses with extra police, National Guard troops and fencing after the FBI had warned about the possibility of armed demonstrations at all 50 state capitols.
Yet some had no demonstrators at all Sunday. The Nevada Capitol in Carson City was empty except for one person carrying a sign reading “Trump Lost. Be Adults. Go Home.”
In Richmond, Virginia, police vehicles, dump trucks and orange barrels blocked streets around the Capitol, but there was no sign of demonstrations.
It was a similar story in Springfield, Illinois. Windows of the Capitol had been boarded up as a precaution amid fears of a gathering similar to the Trump rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a violent mob tried to stop the Electoral College certification for President-elect Joe Biden.
By mid-afternoon Sunday, only guards and state troopers remained around the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, with the crowds dissipating before kickoff of the Cleveland Browns’ NFL playoff game.
Protesters also cleared out in the afternoon in Lansing, Michigan, where state police estimated they numbered only about 20. There were vastly outnumbered by law enforcement and media.
Some counter-protesters have begun showing up outside statehouses to send a message against the far-right groups that have threatened to disrupt the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
In Columbia, South Carolina, a group of about half a dozen people stood on the opposite side of the Statehouse lawn from pro-Trump protesters, with one holding a sign that read: “What are you so PROUD of, BOYS?” It was a reference to the far-right group Proud Boys. The groups did not appear to be interacting.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Stephen Rzonca, who lives a few minutes from the state Capitol, said he came to greet any possible demonstrators, although there were none as of mid-day.
“I’m fundamentally against the potential protesters coming here to de-legitimize the election, and I don’t want to be passive in expressing my disapproval of them coming into this city,” Rzonca said.
And before demonstrators arrived in Lansing, Michigan, a truck showed up with a sign supporting Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a foiled kidnapping plot last year.
At the U.S. Capitol, as federal officers, District of Columbia police and National Guard troops patrolled the area, a lone protester walked the sidewalk wearing a sign that said “Renounce Trump!”
“Look at this world that has been created by Trump,” said the woman, a retiree who lives in the area. She said she was afraid to reveal her name, gesturing at the barricades and largely empty streets.
Small groups of pro-Trump demonstrators, some armed, have begun gathering outside statehouses, including in Michigan, Ohio and South Carolina.
In Lansing, Michigan, state police troopers walked around the Capitol grounds as a small group of demonstrators stood near a chain-link fence surrounding the 142-year-old building. Several National Guard vehicles were on a nearby street. One armed man falsely gave his name as Duncan Lemp, a Maryland man who was killed in a no-knock police raid and became a martyr for a loose network of gun-toting, anti-government extremists.
A supporter of President Donald Trump wore a red “Make American Great Again” hat while standing on the lawn with a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. The back of his shirt read: “PATRIOT NOT RACIST NOT TERRORIST.”
In Columbus, Ohio, about two dozen people, several carrying long guns, gathered outside the Capitol as dozens of state troopers and National Guard members guarded multiple points around the Statehouse, including every entrance. Nearly every business around the downtown capital square was boarded up.
Several dozen people were gathering at the South Carolina Statehouse, some carrying American flags. It was not immediately clear if some in the group were also counter-protesters supportive of the incoming Biden administration.
A heavy law enforcement presence surrounded the government complex in downtown Columbia. The Capitol itself has been surrounded with metal barricades for several days, and state lawmakers have announced they will not hold their scheduled in-person session this week because of the possible unrest.
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Is it fear of the people? I don’t think so. They embraced the rioting and arson by BLM and their fascist imitators, who are “just an idea”, and declared their violence empowering to The People, but they fabricate and predict terrible actions by conservatives without any valid reason. The truly stupid accusations against the Shaman from Arizona would be comical, but knowing that these are our five star law enforcement agency, his arrest is scary. They seem to have Hillary and Reid’s distaste and disgust for We the People.
All this Democrat party of cowards have to offer is fear itself. Soon it will be fear of the National Guardsmen who they treat like street people ,and make them sleep on the Capitol floor like so many Drug users in a tent city, while their offices have comfy couches, Congressional swimming pools and lounges to offer but remain unused. They should fear the actual patriotism that lurks in the hearts of men who volunteer to protect the nation from the very criminal minded people who now expect them to protect the criminals from their own offended disenfranchised angry brothers, cousins, sons and daughters. Already the paranoid Progressive pathological politicians that infest our Houses of Congress are demanding background checks ON THE GUARDSMEN, justifiably paranoid with nightmares of defunded police they have already offended, just sitting still while THE PEOPLE move in to reclaim the Houses that belong to THEM. Next they will send home those from the Red States.
Fear makes a poor ruler indeed when mated to greed in government. When the law of the jungle takes over your nation, those with the ability to self-govern usually come out on top. Trump should pardon all who showed up on the 6th for peaceful demonstration and refrained from violence.
I find it UTTERLY sickening, that those guardsmen, are made to SLEEP On the floors, like hobos..
When the government fears the people there will always be tyranny, like we are already seeing from the DEMONcrats, they are wanting to strip the people of our GOD given rights. BUT when the government has fear of the people there will be freedom, the government fears the people having any freedom as they will not have any control over the citizens. As things look at this timewith the DEMONcrats stomping down on the necks of the people there is going to be nothing less than a full tyrannical government in place very soon, the people will be the ultimate loosers in this case, the DEMONcrats have always wanted a full communist regime now they have it and the demons are going to go full tilt and strip this nation of every right we have. Just watch what the demons do to the country not for but to. They have already said that taxes are going way up so less money for the people, they have already stripped us of our 1st amendment rights they have the 2nd Amendment on the chopping block and the other rights will soon follow. We are now living in the world of 1984 and soon we will be living in the dark ages when they DEMONcrats block all power production for everyone except the rich. The satan worshipping DEMONcrats are not for the people they are only for themselves and ultimate power, the purge has already started.
I take it kd6vkj that you plan to let the government violate your Second Amendment rights by surrendering any guns you might own. Exactly what part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
Flyboy.. THEY CAN take them, from my cold dead hands.
The best action for Conservatives to pursue, in my opinion, is to stay home, do nothing but read a book, stay away from TV News trying to gin up some “action” to breathlessly report about, and leave all the politicians and Media to look like a bunch of damned fools with their miles of razor wire fencing, barricades, tanks, and troops in camo and body armor hanging out talking about football.
Deflate that balloon of Left wing arrogance and pomposity. Save your rage because the Lefties will provide many opportunities going forward…you can count on them for that. Remember the Japanese-Americans that had all their property stolen in CA and were interred in desert camps by FDR’s government during WWII? The poor souls probably even voted for the Bigot-in-Chief because he promised Happy Days are Here Again.
What ever happens, they won’t look like damn fools.. AS IF NOTHING happens, they’ll just circle jerk PAT everyone on the backs, Celebrating “OUR METHODS AND MEANS worked”!
Officials know that the election was a fraud. They know that We, the People know that the election was a fraud. It is only natural that the huge offensive if the fake election would be followed by the fake need for a huge defensive, as a cover-up.
Fake News repeats the big lie 24/7 that “there was no widespread election fraud.”
The TRUTH is that Trump won the election. Biden is a fraud and liar and is guilty of un-Americanizm and treason.
No law, rule, regulation, or order issued by Biden is of any validity or authority whatsoever.
TELL that to congress…
“as law enforcement braced for big rallies and possible violence from” blm and antifa? Oh I forgot, violence from Antifa and blm does not fit the bill of the communist left, does it?
Gee, bet the left and MSM is so disappointed. Couldn’t they pay anyone to pretend to be Trump supporters to keep the narrative going that conservatives/Trump supporters are all domestic terrorists?
This is who shows up when they don’t pay them!
That’s why i fear, EVEN IF WE ALL stay away, they’ll have paid hundreds possibly thousands of antifa scum, TO RIOT ON THAT day, just SO THEY CAN BLAME IT all on us trump supporters.
Is the current situation in the District of Columbia a preview of things to come? The overwhelming presence of the national guard in D.C. prior to Biden’s inauguration and the proliferation of military checkpoints scattered throughout the entire city leave me deeply concerned that the incoming radical Biden administration will use the January 6th Capitol incursion and the online rantings of a few violent individuals on both the extreme left and right as justification for limiting the Constitutional rights of dissenters, especially conservative Republicans, and put our nation on the path to become a socialist police state. The Democrats have become the party of hate, hypocrisy, division, deception, censorship, cancel culture, identity politics, open borders, political-correctness, and wokeness. As a result, with the inauguration of Joe Biden and the Democrats having control of both the House and Senate, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of our cherished Constitutional Republic.
Only if you let those in power violate your Second Amendment rights will we help end our Constitutional Republic. That is why 2A is in the Constitution. It was not put in there to allow deer hunting and beer can pinging.
I can certainly SEE IT being kept in place, all of bidens term, just so they can SQUISH all conservative opposition…
Have they forget what happened over the summer ? Do the black Lies Matter riots, looting and arson attacks not sound at all familiar.
When citizens lives, businesses and property were threatened we saw no response or concern from congress and heard only lies and propaganda from the Liberal Media.
Only now that they feel they can make a political point of it does it supposedly concern them.
AHH.. BUT those “peaceful protests” were just.. Ergo, were condoned, ergo, were authorized…
Not a word in this article about the actual anti-Biden rioting and violence in Portland, Seattle and Denver.
Why? Because it was Antifa and BLM rioting, saying, ‘we don’t want Biden, we want revenge against police, etc. (complete with a drawing of a machine gun).
I thought now Antifa has turned anti-Biden and attacked the Democrats’ HQ in Portland, the MSM might at least mention the violent Antifa riots, but apparently not even that will get them to acknowledge the leftist terrorism.
For those who believe the “line of B##l S##t” from the FBI that armed protest are going to be in all 50 states, you are a fool, this was an attempted false flag operation designed to sucker real patriots into a set up. The Jan 6th so called breach was a set up, it was staged, and choreographed by the deep state, many believe pelosi and mcconnell were in on it, it did what it was designed to do, black lies matter and antifa goons did the breaking and entering, with assistance from the capitol police and someone on the inside. Some Trump supporters followed and got busted as well, most of the goons crawled away like the cockroaches they are and disappeared.