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IPFS News Link • Revolutions, Rebellions & Uprisings

Comparing Jan 6, George Floyd, And 2017 Inauguration Riots

• by RealClearInvestigations Editors

The one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot arrives this week with Americans still sharply divided over the afternoon-long episode's significance and severity as Democrats, hemorrhaging support and facing the loss of Congress in this year's midterms, sternly present a media spectacle of public events to emphasize what they see as the threat posed to democracy by Donald Trump and his party, as represented by that day.

There is no comparable scrutiny of the nationwide summer 2020 riots over George Floyd's murder, protests endorsed by many on the left amid a virulent pandemic -- although polling has shown that a large majority of Americans support examining the circumstances of both events.

RealClearInvestigations has developed the comparison database below allowing readers to draw their own conclusions -- including the all-but-forgotten riot in Washington on Inauguration Day 2017, as protesters challenged Trump's election and legitimacy.

Highlights:

The summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 23 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.

Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases, and prosecutors and judges alike have weighed Capitol riot defendants' political views in adjudicating their cases.

Dozens of accused Capitol rioters have been held in pretrial detention for months, where they have allegedly been mistreated.

In the summer 2020 riots, the vast majority of charges were dismissed, as they were in the Inauguration 2017 unrest. Prosecutors have dropped a single Capitol riot case.


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