Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talked on Instagram about her fear during the Capitol Hill riots, and rather bizarrely, whether a Capitol Hill Police officer had deliberately tried to put her at risk.
On January 6th, when rioters stormed the Capitol Buildings, members of Congress were forced into hiding. During the rioting, AOC became alarmed by someone banging on her office door. As it turned out, it was a member of the Capitol Hill Police. This man trying to help her in the midst of the riot was turned into a villain of the story. Per AOC in a video last night:
“It didn’t feel right. Because he was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility. Things weren’t adding up. There was no partner there. He wasn’t yelling ‘this is Capitol Police, this is Capitol Police.’ And he was looking at me in all of this anger and hostility. …We couldn’t tell, we couldn’t read if this was a good situation or a bad situation. Like so many other communities in this country, just that presence doesn’t necessarily give you a signal if you’re safe or not. So the situation did not feel ok.”
I bet the situation didn’t feel okay for him either. In any case, the officer directed her to another building and moved on. Even away from the officer, she was still wondering if he sent her into some kind of trap.
“It wasn’t until we get to that building, we realize he didn’t give us a specific location…Did he not say he was Capitol police on purpose? Was he trying to actually put us in a vulnerable situation?”
Is AOC dramatically exaggerating this whole encounter? Seeing as how she didn’t tweet about any of it right after the event, probably. In any case, the general reaction to this has been pity for poor AOC. She had reason to be afraid of the rioters, but this is a person who was even afraid of the Capitol Hill police officer trying to help her.
No one should have much sympathy for AOC because she had very little sympathy for all the regular people across the country who faced that same kind of situation all across the country during mass riots last year. There are an awful lot of people that came face-t0-face with the liberals mobs AOC is sympathetic to with their businesses and sometimes their lives on the line. They didn’t have a Capitol Hill policeman to help them. They just had to figure it out. How much concern has AOC shown to those people? None. All of her sympathies were saved for the rioters. If somehow, someway, this taught her something about empathy and the importance of the rule of law, that would be a good thing, but don’t hold your breath waiting.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know.
