#came in fully prepared to submit on thursday and she told me to go take more photos so i could have a higher grade
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solplease · 18 days ago
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i feel like that one picture of the sim screaming going "I CANT TAKE THIS!! THIS IS SO SCARY!! HELP I CANT HANDLE THIS!!" or whatever it is that she says. anyway shes so real for that
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justanotherloveaffair · 6 years ago
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Hungry (T’Challa x Reader One Shot)
BY @captainsordersfic 
Summary: You have been brought to Wakanda as the King’s personal chef and you find him in your kitchen in the middle of the night. 
Warnings: literally just smut. 
Word Count: 6,539
Author’s Note: ****Posting this on behalf of @captainsordersfic my amazing writer friend. I bow to you. Thanks for ruining me forever. This is exactly the kind of T’Challa fantasy I walked out of the theatre having. 
Your name: Submit (what is this?)
My Masterlist
Taglist: @afraiddreamingandloving, @stevesthot, @kumkaniudaku, @nah-imjustfeelinit, @tchallaholla, @a-heretic-child, @simplyyamberr, @wildaboutchrisevans, @fullonfrenzy, @h-challa, @theunsweetenedtruth, @ljstraightnochaser, @90sinspiredgirl, @maverickabull, @big3gocandykahn, @sarahboseman, @airis-paris14, @tacohead13           ***sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged lol, just ignore.
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Another mostly untouched dish sailed across the metal bench in the kitchen as the king’s server returned the dish from the dinner serving.
You sighed and leaned your weight onto one leg, folding your arms across your chest and scowling at the mess of food.
Another rejected meal.
Another plate of food that you had poured your heart and soul into, sacrificed sleep, eating and your downtime to perfect, came back pushed and scattered carelessly across the plate with little more than a few bites taken from any one element.
Realization weighed heavier on you more and more each day that you were failing at your job as the king’s personal chef. In the month that you had been in Wakanda, you had lost count of the number of plates that come back to your kitchen dishevelled but largely uneaten.
You had even taken to tasting the leftovers to see if you sent out something below your usual uncompromising standard. Everything was fine, but nothing got touched. 
You had begun to wonder more than a week ago why you had agreed to take on the one-year contract as the king’s personal chef, and more importantly, why he’d chosen you. And sought you out specifically.
You had made a name for yourself in New York as one of the best and most talented chefs, so when an e-mail came through from the ambassador of Wakanda asking you to take on a job as the king’s chef, you thought it was a phishing email from a distant relative of the Nigerian Prince who needed money.
The difference was that they were offering you money. A lot of it. Like a real lot of it.
After some research on Wakanda, and a talk with some of your peers who told you you’d be a fool to not respond to the offer, you emailed the ambassador back, thinking nothing would come of the correspondence.
The very next night, while the dinner rush was beginning to calm, a strong looking woman in breathtaking armour showed up in your kitchen with two beautiful, but intimidating women wearing matching armour and carrying spears.
You’d barely batted an eye. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to have occurred in a New York kitchen after all.
You looked around wondering if some customers in fancy dress had taken it upon themselves to invite themselves back to the kitchen, half expecting someone to come and escort them out.
When nobody but you seemed to notice them, you approached them.
When the woman introduced herself to you as the general to the king, realization dawned on you that it was all true. The offer, the money, the chance to leave the suffocating bustle of New York and experience a cultural and technological marvel such as Wakanda.
She promised you everything short of the moon and stars if you agreed to take on the one-year secondment.
When you asked the king’s general what kind of food the king liked, she shrugged, which you though was odd, but didn’t read too much into at the time.
“He is not fussy, but he is bored. He has travelled many places and his palate has expanded beyond the traditional offerings of Wakandan cuisine. After much research, the king has chosen you.” She said to you, placing emphasis on the last word as though to illustrate how honoured you should feel that of all the chef’s in the world, he’d chosen you.
You supposed you did feel honoured, but you knew so little about Wakanda and its King that you couldn’t fully appreciate the sentiment. 
Still, your questions were answered with patience and you were promised every resource imaginable in order to carry out your royal duties.  No ingredient would be out of reach, no piece of equipment would be denied, and you would have access to a kitchen that made the one you were standing in look like a civilian’s home setup.
As your conversation went on, you began to feel as though this would be an opportunity you simply couldn’t pass up.
You were granted a couple of days to think about the offer and if you agreed, you would need to begin immediately. You had already made up your mind to accept the offer when they left your kitchen, but you took the two days to tie up loose ends and arrange for your restaurant to be taken care of in your absence.
You accepted the offer on Tuesday, and by Thursday you’d arrived in Wakanda.
Now, almost a month in, never having met the king, but knowing you weren’t succeeding to please him, you were at a loss.  You didn’t know what to do.
The king wasn’t eating. At least not anything you had prepared. You were beginning to obsess about it.
You were testing recipes every spare moment, including when you should have been sleeping.
You’d tried every iteration of French Cuisine, Italian, Greek, and Spanish. When they were met with a lukewarm response, you brought it back closer to the King’s home and tried several regional African dishes which were received with even less enthusiasm.
You tried Japanese, Chinese and South-East Asian. British, North American (Native and Modern), South American, and Eastern European cuisines also failed to impress, regardless of being dressed up or dressed down.
They all ended up being boxed and distributed to the king’s staff instead of being eaten by the king himself.
Now as you looked at a plate of Lebanese food that you had prepared with traditional methods, but modernized to be more pleasing to the eye, in its mish-mashed state across the slate plate you’d sent it out on, you lost your temper.
You threw the plate in the industrial style sink, breaking the plate and sending an almighty clang echoing around your vast kitchen. 
You wanted to give up and go home. It was clear that both the king and you had made a mistake in this arrangement though his general assured you you’d been specifically requested.
You didn’t care anymore.  You wanted to go back to your restaurant where you knew you were nailing it, and customers were booking months in advance to come and experience your food.
You started becoming increasingly irate about it until finally, you came to the conclusion that the King of Wakanda must be some kind of spoiled, pampered man-child who would never be pleased with anything you did.
You retired to your quarters for a rest, falling into a much needed but fitful sleep. When you woke up, you felt like you’d been hit by a truck. When the anger subsided, you were left existing in a husk of exhaustion, homesickness and dejectedness.
It was early in the morning, around 2 am when you crawled out of bed and shuffled half clothed towards your kitchen, looking like a boxer who was down for the count, but refused to stay down. You planned on air swinging through this experience until your lack of enthusiasm eventually got you fired or the king’s staff took pity on you and convinced him to send you back home.
As you approached the kitchen, you saw two of the Dora Milaje standing on either side of the entrance.
This was not unusual as the younger sister of the king often came in search of midnight snacks to provide sustenance to her obsessive all-night experimentation sessions.
Thinking nothing of it, you passed between the warriors and crossed the threshold into the kitchen.
The lights were off, but the glow from the fridge illuminated a tall, solid figure wearing little more than a pair of long, silk black pyjama bottoms.
His skin under the harsh, blue light of the refrigerator rippled and pulsed with the movements of his muscles as he scavenged inside the industrial refrigerator.
You stopped and watched as he emerged with a container of passionfruit coulis that you had prepared as part of a dessert that you had come in to try and perfect, turning to find you watching him.
You froze when you saw who it was.
T’Challa. The King of Wakanda and he was breath taking.
Immediately your state of undress had you panicking. You were wearing a tank top with no bra and a pair of Nike running shorts. That was it.
Do I bow? Do I salute? Do I speak or wait to be spoken to? You didn’t know how to react, you’d never even seen him in person, let alone talked to him, so you stood there, still as a tree not moving or talking.
He, on the other hand, didn’t seem nearly quite so frazzled by your unexpected crossing of paths. He simply turned, taking the container over to the metal bench and placing it down on the surface beside an array of other containers of things you were working on.
You watched him for just a moment longer, because more than his status, his beauty and the graceful languidness of the way his body moved, his presence was consuming and paralyzing.
You felt bound in place, unable to move as he affixed a plate of food, turning to regard you every now and then as you stood like an idiot watching him.
“You do not sleep either?” He asked you finally and for a few seconds, it took you a moment to work out that he was directing the question at you.
You didn’t know how to respond. What was the right answer?
“I…I…” you began lamely, “I used to.”
He nodded as though he understood, though you doubted very strongly your lack of sleep had a similar cause.
“Me too,” he said simply, his voice tired and grave like he’d not slept in an age.
You remained in place, visualizing yourself turning around and leaving the kitchen to leave the king be, but your body would not respond to follow suit.
Suddenly, King T’Challa stopped what he was doing and turned to you. He gestured with his hand towards the space he was standing in, inviting you to join him.
You peered over your shoulder, where you couldn’t see the Dora Milaje outside the kitchen, but knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were there.
You stepped towards him slowly and uncertainly, feeling him watching you, but not able to meet his eyes. You stopped about seven feet away, not daring to get any closer.
He kept his eyes on you the whole time and though it was dark, you could see his expression was one of curiosity laced with something else that you couldn’t put your finger on.
His eyes were sweeping over you until you began to feel naked under his intense scrutiny. You crossed your hands front of you and looked around the room to distract yourself.
“Y/N,” he said, bringing your eyes back to him, “please be at ease. There is no need to be nervous.”
You tried to relax your shoulders, but it was impossible, so you figured if you couldn’t look relaxed, then you could at least make an attempt to sound relaxed.
“I suppose you feel as though you made an error in judgement bringing me here.”
He turned fully to face you then, crossing his arms over his bare chest.
“And why do you say that?” He asked, his eyes narrowing with curiosity and perhaps a touch of offence at the implication that he’d done something wrong.
Seriously, you thought to yourself, though you would never have said that.
“Well, you don’t seem to have...” you paused trying to find a gentle way of expressing your doubts, “taken to my style of food.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes still narrowed as he regarded you with cool authority.
“I am the King of the most powerful and technologically advanced nation on Earth. I do not have the luxury of making errors in judgement,” he said finally, and every cell in your body froze as a rash of fear that you’d offended him broke out all over.
“I’m sorry your—” you stopped, wondering if “majesty” was the correct address, “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I did not make a mistake, you are right where I want you to be,” he interrupted, effectively shutting down your ability to function with the assured, confident way he said it.
You couldn’t understand though.  “Then why aren’t you eating my food?” you blurted, allowing more of your frustration and desperation to seep out than you had intended, then quickly tried to right yourself.
T’Challa was silent for another spell, standing with a casual lean, but emanating a kind of energy that was anything but.
You couldn’t help but think how Black Panther like he really was, standing in the dark, prowling around your kitchen and making you feel stalked and unsettled.
“How many hours a day do you spend developing, preparing and cooking your recipes?”
You knew the answer easily.
“I work twenty hours a day. I get four hours of sleep on a couch in my office if I am lucky.”
“And in that time. How much do you actually eat?”
“Well,” you began uncertainly, wondering what he was getting at while coming up with a response, “I taste food all day…but…I guess I don’t often have meals. Not in the traditional sense.”
“You are responsible for one restaurant in New York and yet you seldom do more than merely taste food and work twenty hours a day,” he began, and you saw his point immediately. “How much time do you think I have for the same?”
His response landed like a punch in your gut as you felt your feet slip several rungs from the height of the self-righteous ladder you’d placed yourself on.
He’d not meant it condescendingly, but you were nevertheless humbled. Your eyes lowered to the floor between you.
“Why do you continue to cook? Always choosing to create instead of sleep? What is your motivation, Y/N?”
Your name from his lips caused a reaction in your body that you immediately worked to suppress. 
Once again, your response required no thought. “Food gives pleasure…I like to please.”
You watched as his lips pulled into a scarce smile, his cheekbones sharpening attractively as he regarded you like your response pleased him.
“It’s true that I have not had the luxury of a full meal since you have arrived in Wakanda, for which I am regretful. But I assure you that you have succeeded in giving me pleasure,” he responded in such a way that made you wonder if you were talking about food anymore.
Your body tensed, his gaze on you giving you every reason to believe it was a possibility and you started to panic internally.
You were being seduced by one of the world’s most powerful men.
Every outcome, ranging from whimsical fairy tale, to a nightmare of a life lived out for the rest of your days in servitude to a madman went through your mind.
You didn’t know him, and yet your body was responding to him and his words as though you knew each other very intimately.
“For example,” he said turning slightly to his right and collecting the container of passionfruit coulis from the kitchen bench, “were I not called away to tend to an urgent matter involving hostages, I would have licked clean the smear of this that lay on the plate beneath the dessert you prepared for me this evening,” he said bringing the container as he walked towards you, causing heat to rush all around your body in a cyclonic, swirling torrent.
“Passionfruit is my very favourite fruit.”
It was abundantly clear to you that he was not talking about passionfruit.
He dipped his finger into the container and covered the tip in coulis, before bringing it to his lips to suck off the sharp, slightly sweet sauce.
Your eyes were transfixed, watching as his finger pressed to his tongue before his beautiful, full lips closed around his finger.
You knew the pace of your breathing had changed, but you couldn’t regulate it. You knew where this was going, you just didn’t know if you should run a mile or stay and…
“It is very good, but it is missing something.”
Your eyes snapped to his.
Saying your food was “missing something”, to you, was akin to you having underestimated his kingly responsibilities and you bristled at the implication.
Before you could defend your passionfruit coulis, he covered his finger again and held it to your lips.
“Here,” he said softly, and you hesitated.
When the moment started to drag on for too long, you averted your eyes from his, trying to make the moment feel less intimate as you opened your mouth and tentatively took as restrained a taste from his finger as you could.
Your body felt anything but collected as the sourness of the passionfruit made your mouth instantly water, but in the background was the taste of his skin, and when he removed his finger he brushed it across your bottom lip, leaving a trail of coulis there.
The moment seemed to build and culminate to the instant where he leaned down towards you and smoothly and confidently took your bottom lip into his mouth and sucked away the passionfruit sauce.
You made a sound. Not of protest but of pleasure and then forced yourself back, placing your hand over your mouth.
You looked over your shoulder where you knew the Dora Milaje were standing on guard, but then you felt his hand at your cheek, turning you to look at him.
He peered down at you, his eyes soulful, almost pleading, but you knew he didn’t need to plead. 
He could take.
You were on edge from the lingering taste of him in your mouth and faint tingle left behind from the contact. You could be knocked over with a feather.
He regarded you carefully, gaging your reticence. When your eyes lowered to his lips, it was all he needed, and he once again leaned down to you, but you turned your head back towards the hallway.
“You do not need to concern yourself with them, they have been dismissed. We are alone.”
How? When? you wondered confused as you turned to look up at him again.
Then, for the first time, he smiled, lowering his chin and raising his eyebrows in a playful expression that did not befit a king, but was powerfully disarming nonetheless.
“I think I found the missing element from your passionfruit coulis.”
His hand that had warmed your cheek, lowered and hooked around your waist pulling you up against his body and your hands raised to his chest instinctively. The planes of his pectorals were hard under your hands and you gasped as you watched your breasts press and flatten against him.
He lay the container of coulis on the bench next to you and pressed his large, strong palms against your barely covered ass, squeezing the handfuls of flesh and pressing you tightly to where the thin layer of his silken pyjamas hid none of the stirring that was going on beneath them.
Your cheeks heated at the swell of his developing erection. You felt helpless in his hold, yet powerful at the same time from his response to you.
With one step backwards, he pressed you against the industrial stainless-steel refrigerator and you gasped at the shock of the cold steel on your warm back.
His hands came away from your ass and with a swift, hasty tug, your shorts were around your thighs and you marched in place to get them to slide down the rest of your legs, having no hope of getting him to back off enough for you to lean forwards and use your hands to do it. The fates were in your favour as you felt the slide of the nylon shorts down your thighs, calves and then ankles.
As his hands gathered the hem of your tank top, your mind went wild.
You were being undressed by a King. You were going to have sex with the famed Black Panther.
Was it a one-night stand? You didn’t mind, you were too far in now to even contemplate not taking what you could get of him.
His body felt like hot granite against you and you couldn’t help but think how a statue of this man should replace the David statue in Italy.
This was the benchmark. This should be the standard. The yardstick by which all other men should be measured, and you wanted him. You needed him, now.
Suddenly you were naked, and all he had to do was slightly flex his arms and you were in the air, pressed against the fridge, with his hands underneath your thighs.
He reached to the right and took the container of coulis, tipping it carefully towards your neck.
You felt the cool, sticky liquid make contact with you, pouring onto your naked skin. It slid down your neck and over your chest, and he moved the container to ensure your breasts also got covered in the sticky, bright yellow syrup.
He hastily discarded the container and then his mouth was on your neck, sucking, licking and moaning as he hungrily cleaned you off.
You closed your eyes, willing away any distant thoughts cautioning you against what was happening right there and then. His silken tongue was all you cared about as you gripped his shoulders, feeling heat and a delicious ache you’d all but forgotten forming between your legs.
He was devouring you, coulis transferring onto his skin from yours and you had to restrain yourself from trying to contort your upper body to reach down and taste him in return.
You’d have to wait for your turn.
His mouth was inching down your chest and you braced as he began kissing, licking and nibbling down over the curve of your breast, towards your nipple.
Oh God, you thought as you felt his mouth approaching the hard tip at the centre of your breast. Your mouth opened, and you gasped as his tongue flickered over the sensitive bud, your body bracing and pushing instinctively away as your nails dug into his shoulders.
You couldn’t get away if you tried. His strength was equal parts alarming and arousing as he held you in place with almost no effort.
Your hand came to the back of his head as your hips instinctively pressed forwards, feeling the long ridge of hot, hard flesh beneath the surface of his pyjamas. Your hands raced for the waistband and you shoved them down his hips, anxious to be given unfettered access to him, skin to skin.
You were rewarded as his cock came to rest right against the seam of soft, slippery flesh between your legs and pressed there while he continued to lick you clean of passionfruit.
You began to crave his mouth, licking your own lips for traces he’d left earlier but being left wanting. 
You cupped his jaw and angled his face upwards and he pulled away reluctantly with your nipple between his teeth.
You arched into him and he let go, allowing you to guide him to your mouth where you met in a deeply ravenous, searching kiss. You moaned as your tongues slid around one another, hungry for each other like the two starved people you were.
You could taste passionfruit and lust and you never wanted it to end, unable to stop the pleasured sounds from sailing out as he drank them down greedily and returned them back to you.
You were dangerously hot and becoming slippery in his grasp though you had no fear of him dropping you. He was too commanding and in control for such clumsy earthly fumblings.
You smiled when you felt his hips flex against you, rubbing his cock against your warm, wet centre, searching for relief from the ache he was undoubtedly experiencing.
You immediately became overcome with the need to become better acquainted with his kingly cock.
You unclasped your legs from around his waist and let yourself slide naturally down his body until you landed gently of the pads of your feet, pulling your mouth out of reach from his. 
You smiled and placed your hands on his pectorals again, bringing your lips and tongue to his chest where the coulis had rubbed off onto him, tasting the spiky, sour fruit against the warmth and salt of his dewy skin. You felt his hands come to the back of your head and hold you there as you licked all around and slowly worked your way down his chest.
He made a sound when he realised where you were going, and he closed his eyes and let his head fall back towards the ceiling.
You were anxious to reach your final destination, but you forced yourself to take it slow, enjoying the journey down the line of his hard stomach, over the undulating planes of his abs and the retreating line of his pelvis where you came to your knees and followed the veins that fanned out there with the tip of your tongue.
He was so hard and thick, and the extent of his arousal was apparent from the way his perfect, beautiful, tempting tower of a shaft stood upright and proud despite its impressive size and weight.
You had never been tempted by any food as much as you were tempted by being face to face with King T’Challa’s cock right then.
You closed your eyes and pressed a soft, slow, open mouthed kiss against the tip and he immediately groaned at the contact. You did it again, this time pressing your tongue to the flesh there before closing your lips over the edge of the crown of his cock, feeling his whole body respond to what you were doing.
Your hand instinctively came up to curve around the base of his shaft and hold him in place while you opened your mouth and closed your lips around the entire tip of his hot, hard cock, moaning as you began sucking it slowly, sliding your tongue in a circle around the head.
You were enjoying this with more relish than any meal you’d ever eaten and with more pride than anything you had ever created.
His body was responding in waves as his hips moved restlessly while you slowly worked him deeper into your mouth.
You wanted to give him permission to fuck your mouth, but weren’t sure how to make such a request eloquent enough to deliver to a King. You couldn’t forget, no matter how intimately you were engaged that you were in the company of royalty.
You cupped his balls in your hand and closed your fingers around them, squeezing gently and then loosening your grip while you slid your mouth in a rhythmic glide up and down his cock.
“You must stop now,” he commanded, his voice strained and breathless and you obeyed him, albeit reluctantly. You could have given that cock head all night, never waning in enthusiasm for it.
His hands gripped your upper arms, once again shocking you with his strength by not only pulling you to your feet, but off them, and you gasped as you flew weightlessly through the air and came down hard against one of the stainless-steel benches.
You yelped from the shock of the cold metal on your ass but had no time to adjust as he hooked his hands behind your knees and yanked you hard to edge of the bench.
Your thighs spread before him and he placed a hand at your sternum, pushing you gently until you were laid out flat on your back. You looked down the line of your own body and watched as he took your ankles and lifted your legs so that your feet were resting on the edge of the bench.
Then he took his cock in one hand and began to stroke himself while he leaned over and covered your pussy with his mouth.
“Oh God! Oh God!” you cried out, arching up off the bench at the contact of his tongue and lips between your legs. 
He was growling while he licked, sucked and used his free hand to rub every surface of your pussy and the sensitive bundle of nerves beneath the protective folds of flesh.
Your hips began to lift towards his face, grinding a rhythm against his tongue while he sucked around your most sensitive place. You pressed your hands to the back of his head, only distantly wondering with irony if that was allowed or inappropriate, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as you felt the coiling heat between your legs drawing inwards and making your whole body tense.
You imagined him stroking himself, because you couldn’t see it happening from the position you were in and it only made you ache more as you moaned and writhed beneath him. He lapped at you greedily, and you could see the sheen of your arousal glistening on his lips and through his beard.
Then you felt the press of his fingers at your opening and your feet lifted off the bench welcoming the entry of any part of him.
Two fingers slid inside, slowly and he stopped licking you when he felt the press of your resistive walls around his fingers even though you were wildly aroused.
“Oh, so tight,” he whispered, and you knew what he was thinking, and it wasn’t about his fingers.
He brought his mouth back to your clit and slowly began working his fingers in and out of your pussy, moaning as your hips rolled up and down in time with his touch.
You opened your eyes and saw the sheen that had formed along the beautiful curve of his back, watching as the muscles there gathered and pulsated with his smooth movements and you felt yourself getting close to coming.
“Don’t stop, please,” you begged mindless with the desperation to climax, writhing beneath him until you were so close you began bucking against his mouth.
You were one lick away from orgasm when he pulled his fingers and mouth away from you, and you were about to voice your displeasure when he took himself by the base of his cock and guided it to your entrance.
The tip slipped tentatively between your folds where he slid it up and down, alternating between massaging your clit and teasing you with a slight press of his head at your entrance.
You couldn’t decide which you wanted more, so you grabbed for him restlessly, only just able to grab his hips.
“We need to be careful Y/N,” you heard him rasp, as he drew his tip in a circle around your clit.
“I’m on birth control,” you assured him which made his body jerk with a breathless laugh.
“Western medicines are not strong enough to protect against the genetically superior strength of the Black Panther,” he explained, “I won’t risk impregnating you, so I will need to finish…elsewhere,” he said, his words making your mind explode and your body bubble over.
“Wherever you want, my King,” you murmured unsure if the address was appropriate, but it felt natural to say and his body reacted positively to it as he smiled down at you pleased.
Suddenly you felt him press forwards with his hips, and your entrance was immediately stretched, just from the head of his cock. You gasped and braced yourself as he halted his movement for a moment, giving you time to adjust.
Reaching down between you, you took his shaft in your hands and guided his pace. He was too big to push inside all at once and you needed time to force your muscles to relax so you could accommodate him.
He was patient and stroked your thighs gently while he waited for you to inch him inside slowly.
He was only half way in when you requested that he slowly thrust in and out to loosen you up. “Please fuck me slowly.”
He pressed his fingers into the crease of your thighs, holding you in place as he withdrew his hips a couple of inches and then slid back in slowly. His brow was laced with sweat and he bit his lip as he fought against the urge to go deeper than you were ready for.
He groaned with effort as he worked the first half of his shaft in and out of your tight pussy and you reached down between you to massage your clit while he did it, doing everything you could think of to force your body to relax.
Slowly, and through the grace of his patience, you felt your walls begin to yield. He smiled as he felt it too, watching as more of his cock slipped inside and came out glistening, coated with your arousal which aided his descent deep inside your throbbing pussy.
When he finally made it all the way inside and his balls were pressed right up against your inner thighs and ass, he groaned with satisfaction and you sighed with relief, feeling him pressed so deep inside that you imagined his shaft behind your belly.
He leaned forwards over you, his spine curving downwards until his chest was pressed to yours as his hands guided your legs to come around his back. When your ankles were locked around him, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders as his hands gripped your sides.
He stared into your eyes and it was overwhelming and somehow more intimate than that fact that he was buried balls deep inside your pussy.
He kissed you then, soft and adoring and once again it felt like too much.
You clenched around him and he closed his eyes, his lips hovering over yours.
“This was the kind of pleasure I needed. This is what I have been searching for.”
His breath was intoxicating, and you felt heat springing to your eyes, realising that this mighty king in your arms was not starving of food, but intimacy.
A rush of empathy and a sense of duty flooded your body then as you lifted your head and kissed him until his body relaxed against yours.
You rolled your hips upwards against him, eliciting a soft moan from his lips.
“Let me feed you my king,” you whispered on his lips and lifted your hips again, “let me give you pleasure and fill you the way you’re filling me.”
His body began to move involuntarily, like he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to. “Yes, my king,” you moaned, your voice tight from the feeling of fullness inside you as he began slowly rocking in and out of your body, “yes, yes like that,” you whimpered, feeling his movement coming firmer and more fully formed as you gripped each other tightly.
Slickness coated your thighs as your arousal overflowed and between moans of pleasure from the press of him deep from within you, you continued to murmur whispers of pleasure and encouragement.
Your hands roamed, searching for purchase along his back and shoulders, feeling the tightness of his muscles working beneath the palms of your hands.
You clawed as he began thrusting with enough force to make the steel bench buckle under your back, but neither of you could focus on the structural integrity of the bench he was fucking you on right now.
You already felt like you were falling through the floor, so you supposed it wouldn’t matter if you actually did.
Over his shoulder you relished the sight of his strong back twisting and working while he fucked you. The visual of it, sparking a fire deep inside where his cock was buried, and you felt your body start winding tightly inwards towards it’s inevitable release.
“Oh God, T’Challa, I’m close, I’m going to come,” you announced grasping his shoulders and anchoring your nails into his flesh as he fucked you relentlessly.
He was working on heading off his own release and his face clenched with effort as he bucked up into you, hard and commandingly.
“Now, please. You must—” he begged as you immediately sailed right over the edge and came hard while he pounded away, the steel surface of the bench warping beneath your back as you arched upwards towards him while your entire body reeled from the force of the climax he’d given you.
The room filled with the sounds of your cries and his groans of effort until finally, he pulled out of you and took himself in his hands, jerking his length while hot spurts of his come sprayed out onto your outer pussy, thighs and stomach.
The sounds he made were primal and animal as you rubbed your clit chasing the high of your orgasm while his body seized over yours in the throes of his own.
It was erotic and consuming and when your orgasm abated, and your clit became too sensitive to touch, you drew your fingers through the streaks of pearlescent wetness on your body, unable to suppress the satisfied smile on your face as you rubbed it into your skin and then brought to your lips to taste as he watched.
You moaned at the flavour of salt and sex and closed your eyes as he hovered over you while you tried to catch your breath.
When you could finally move, T’Challa pulled you upright into a sitting position and you were immediately aware of the state of your appearance. Your hair was wild and dishevelled and you were covered in a sticky cocktail of passionfruit, sugar, sex and sweat.
“I’m a mess,” you commented looking down at yourself as you felt his hands come to rest on your thighs.
“I have never been more tempted,” he said lustfully, pressing his lips to your neck and you closed your eyes and sighed.
He drew backwards and looked in your eyes.
“Come. Spend the night in the King’s quarters with me.”
It was a weighted request that you were not naïve enough to fail to see that you needed to consider this request before mindlessly responding.
Reading the cloud of hesitance come over your face, he pressed his palm to your cheek, stilling your whirring mind.
“I only had a taste. I need so much more.”
Well Goddamn, how am I supposed to say no to that? you wondered, unsure if it was wise to push aside all the practicalities of getting tangled up with a King and all that it entailed.
As you looked into his eyes and admired the impossible curl of his eyelashes though, you didn’t have enough fight in you to deny him.
“What will everyone think if they see me in your quarters?”
“Their job is not to think, it is to serve their King,” he replied, reminding you once again with the firmness in his tone that his wishes were not to be questioned and were the only ones that ultimately mattered in Wakanda.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly at you and he lowered his chin.
“Will you accompany me?”
You leaned forwards to hover your lips over his and whispered, “As you wish, my King.”
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sotina886 · 3 years ago
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lawmakers and activists decry police response to attack on US Capitol
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, civil rights leaders and activists blasted law enforcement agencies for their slow response to rioters at the U.S. Capitol, noting the massive show of police force in place for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last ear over police killings of unarmed Black men and women.
Biden said his granddaughter pointed out the unfair difference in images that showed the violence wielded against Black Lives Matter protesters versus the seemingly muted response against those who attacked the U.S. government.
"No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said in remarks to the nation Thursday.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Thursday the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the "two systems of justice" in the U.S.
"We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer," she said on Twitter. "It's simply unacceptable."
Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Ohio and former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, also questioned law enforcement officials' security efforts.
"The Capitol police were unprepared, ineffective and some were complicit. All of them should be held to account," Fudge, who was still in lockdown by the evening and who has been tapped by Biden to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told USA TODAY Wednesday night.
Fudge said there's "no question" the response was different than at last year's Black Lives Matter protests at the Capitol. She shared a picture of a row of police standing guard on the steps of the Capitol.
"There is a double standard,'' she said.
As thousands of people of color and allies took to the streets last year to protest police brutality — most of them peacefully — law enforcement often clashed with demonstrators, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, bruising faces and bodies, and, in one incident that went viral, pushing an elderly man to the ground.
But as thousands of President Donald Trump supporters, mostly white, marched from a campaign-style rally to the Capitol Wednesday and broke into the building as lawmakers were convening to count presidential electoral votes, forcing lawmakers and staff to shelter in place, crowds of law enforcement were notably absent.
Trump, who previously characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as "thugs," said on Twitter that the people involved in the riots Wednesday were "great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he applauded Capitol police officers who bravely stood in the line of duty against the "failed insurrection."
"With that said, yesterday represented a massive failure of institutions, protocols, and planning that are supposed to protect the first branch of our federal government," he said in a statement. "A painstaking investigation and thorough review must now take place and significant changes must follow."
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police defended Thursday his agency’s response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion. Chief Steven Sund said his agency "had a robust plan" for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred Wednesday was "criminal riotous behavior."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., however, called for Sund's resignation and said that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, another key security official, had already submitted his resignation. He reports directly to Pelosi, while Sund answers to both the House and Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll fire the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger once he takes control of the Senate for the GOP later this month.
D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said the mob of Trump supporters came to Capitol Hill "following the president's remarks" and was "intent on causing harm to our officers by deploying chemical irritants on police to force entry into the United States Capitol."
But only a small group of riot police stood outside the back of the Capitol building in the early afternoon, and as rioters called for breaching the building, hundreds started swarming into the area, reporters at the scene noted Wednesday.
As people began climbing up the side of the building and on the back balcony, police appeared to retreat. After the break-in, police attempted to secure one section outside the building but were quickly overwhelmed, according to reporters at the scene.
One video posted to social media showed several people in D.C. Capitol Police jackets removing barriers outside the Capitol building, allowing rioters to pass through to the building. Videos posted to Twitter also showed at least one person who appeared to be an officer taking selfies with people who had breached the Capitol. USA TODAY has not been able to independently verify the identities of the people in these images.
By Wednesday afternoon, Army Gen. Mark Milley said the D.C. National Guard had been fully activated. "We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation," Miller said in a statement.
Several videos shared to social media Wednesday afternoon showed officials slowly escorting people out of the building. One officer in riot gear could be seen helping a white woman in a Trump hat down the Capitol steps, holding her hand, according to a CNN livestream.
By Wednesday evening, nearly a full day after the rioters first clashed with police Tuesday night, officers began using tear gas and percussion grenades to begin clearing crowds, ahead of a 6 p.m. curfew. In the moments before, there were violent clashes between the police and rioters, who tore railing for the inauguration scaffolding and threw it at the officers.
One woman suffered a fatal gunshot wound inside the capitol, Contee said. At least 13 people were arrested, and five firearms were recovered.
By comparison, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked last year's protest movement, more than 100 people were arrested over the course of three days in Minneapolis. In subsequent days, cities across the country arrested dozens of people in a single night, with Los Angeles arresting more than 500 in one day.
"When Black folks are protesting and progressives are protesting peacefully they were tear-gassed, they were arrested, they were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot with real bullets," Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP, said in a telephone interview. "We watched it take place all summer long when people were peacefully demonstrating."
'A fanciful reality':Trump claims Black Lives Matter protests are violent, but the majority are peaceful
Johnson questioned why the Capitol police and other local law enforcement agencies weren’t prepared for thousands of Trump supporters, including the Proud Boys. There had been plenty of warnings on social media and talk shows about the potential for riots, he said.
"We should not be witnessing what we are witnessing today in this nation,'' he said. "It is a global embarrassment.”
Johnson said tens of thousands of people joined protests at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington without this level of violence. "None of this took place," he said.
The majority of Black Lives Matter-affiliated protests over the summer were peaceful, according to a report by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort including Princeton University in New Jersey that collects and analyzes real-time data on demonstrations and political violence in the United States.
Kofi Ademola, a local Chicago activist who helped organize civil rights protests throughout the summer, said he was not surprised Wednesday by the police response.
"It's not any shock that we see this huge contradiction that we can storm a capitol ... break into elected officials’ offices, the chamber, and create other chaos trying to perform a fascist coup, and we see little to no consequences,'' he said.
"But Black protesters here in D.C. and Chicago, we’re heavily policed, brutalized, for literally saying, 'Don’t kill us.' There was no planned insurrections. We were literally just advocating for our lives. It speaks volumes about the values of this country. It doesn’t care about our lives."
CNN commentator Van Jones highlighted the discrepancy in a tweet Wednesday.
"Imagine if #BlackLivesMatter were the ones who were storming the Capitol building," he wrote. "Thousands of black people laying siege to the seat of government – in the middle of a joint session of Congress? Just imagine the reaction."
At the Capitol Wednesday, some lawmakers were holed up in their offices and other places. Several would not say where they were for safety reasons. Staffers were cleared out of the press galleries and the Capitol by the afternoon.
"The after-action review will determine what failures occurred and why,'' said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "The plans should have anticipated the potential for what happened today."
Black Lives Matter Global Network called the law enforcement response to Wednesday's riots hypocritical.
"When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,'' the group said in a statement. "When white people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today."
"Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot,'' the group wrote.
The chaos that unfolded Wednesday stands in particularly harsh contrast to the law enforcement presence seen when U.S. and military police drove protesters out of Lafayette Square, located between the White House and the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, shortly before a presidential photo op with a Bible at the church on June 1. Officers used smoke canisters, shields, pepper balls and horses to force demonstrators from the park.
As violent Trump supporters climbed the steps of the Capitol Wednesday, Trey Williamson, of Burke, Virginia, stood nearby while straddling his bike, arguing with those who would listen. He wore a helmet with Black Lives Matter written on it.
Williamson, a food safety director at a large restaurant, was in Washington, D.C., last year when Trump had the streets cleared so that he could take his photo in front of St. John's. "I got tear-gassed and all I was doing was riding my bike trying to see what was going on," Williamson said.
Lafayette Square photo op:How police pushed protesters aside
He said the police response at the Capitol was lukewarm in comparison to what he experienced during Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. "If there were nothing but Black people up there, there would’ve been a lot of injuries," he said. "It sucks, but I know that this is how it is. I know that because Trump people have felt more comfortable to be at ease with their racism."
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., was holed up in his Capitol Hill office Wednesday as rioters continued their assault on the Capitol. During a Zoom call with reporters, said he and his staff were safe and weren’t leaving. Kind said he intended to return to the House chamber to continue the debate over the certification of electoral votes.
"Things are still not in control, unfortunately," he said.
Kind blamed Trump, who has been reluctant to denounce white nationalists and fraudulently insisted he won the November election, for encouraging the violence Wednesday.
"When he was encouraging the demonstrations, tweeting out that this was going to be quote 'wild.' I mean, what would he expect the reaction would be, especially when you're talking about the Proud Boys, militia groups, white supremacists coming into our nation's capital today," Kind said.
Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., put out a series of statements on Twitter Wednesday calling on law enforcement to engage rioters "with the same humanity and discipline with which they should have engaged people who were outraged by a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck."
"What many are saying is true: If this were Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now," she wrote. "The response tells the story of our nation’s racist history and present. How can we stop it from being the future?"
Contributing: Will Carless, Marco R Della Cava and N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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sdclientstudies-blog · 7 years ago
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Working with my team
Once we decided on the roles and responsibilities were decided upon. We could now get together with our teams. Our teams will consist of all the members within the groups that all have all been allocates the same roles. In our teams we will distribute the responsibilities of the roles. We will be working with our teams most and Then using our groups to deliberate what each team has been up to.
Meet my Location & Logistics Team:
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With this Location and Logistics team I will work on organising and leasing with a venue for the event to take place. The role of my team is really important because the rest of the class is really relying on us to find the best place possible to hold the exhibition. Also we are the team that really need to act the fastest because the other teams are relying on the information of the confirmed venue in order to start/continue with their roles. For example Promotion will need to have a confirmed location and time for the event before they can go ahead with printing the posters, flyers for advertisements. Also curation will need to know where the venue is so that they can find out what amount of space we have to showcase the work, this will help them to decide on how many pieces they can pick to exhibit.
Also as it just so happens Ginnie, Reiss and myself volunteered to share the role of project manager. So the three of us will oversee the event as a whole and ensuring that things are being done. We will also be the ones communicating the most with the tutors the most, also each team will nominate a team leader who will also be the ones communicating to us to ensure everything is being done at a professional standard and in an appropriate time frame.
Meet the Project Managers:
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Now that everyone knew their roles and responsibilities it was time for each of us to show our capabilities to work both fast and efficiently. Everyone was doing whatever they could to get started on piecing the show together. Curation set a brief for all individual illustrations from students to be submitted by the 3rd of October. Branding and Design were set dates to finish their designs for poster,invites,logo and other promotion material. Promotion were making social media accounts ready to advertise sneak peeks of work and also the designs that branding and design were producing them with. Private viewing/Events were producing Ideas and researching opportunities for the private viewing.
Here is a screenshot of the Instagram page that promotion set up:
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Because it was crucial that the location and logistics team came together immediately and worked together effectively to secure a location, I arranged and held a meeting. In this meeting we discussed exactly what preparations we would need to make in order to secure a venue for the exhibition and how we would work together to get it done. We decided it was best to come together as a whole and work on every task together. Such as all of us splitting into pairs to go out into Cardiff and all look for possible venues. Making initial contact with the venues by having informal face to face interviews if it was possible. If not possible then we would decide amongst the pairs who would email, call and be point of contact for each venue. This would also apply for following up initial contacts with the possible venues. We may also need to have a portfolio preparation available if contacts where to ask for us to showcase the type of work we were going to be displaying. Being prepared and having these preparations in order before hand, As well as working together as a whole allowed us to be in contact with many venues at once allowing us to make the most of the short time frame we have.
Personally I prepared for these preparations by being involved in visits and Making initial contact with the venues by having informal face to face interviews. Also I collected some previous personal and project work together ready to be sent to whom ever may need it. These preparation were the easy part for me but having to be a point of contact with a possible venue on my own was something I was not looking forward to because I really struggle with speaking on the phone because I am self conscious of my voice and my Lisp. I didn't bring this issue up to any member of my group but I just avoided the issue by not really offering myself to be point of contact and allowing the other members in my group to do so. Looking back I should have spoke with my team to ask for help and guidance as I am sure they would have been more than willing to help me to build my confidence allowing me to , next time I am going to make a conscious effort to do so.
As we were trying to all do things at the same time it was important to keep track and document who was doing what so in somewhat of chronological order here is a log of the process that location and logistics took.
Ceiran & Reiss Visited urban outfitters, whilst there they received some information about the space available and were asked to follow up with an email to the events manager. Reiss decided he would be the one that followed the email up and become the direct contact with urban outfitters on behalf of us all.
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Whilst they did that Ginnie decided she would follow up with little man coffee shop after we previously visited them with our group. Also she found another possible venue at this point but we didn't follow this through they only hired it out on a 2 week basis for £29 a day which worked out too much for our budget. She also volunteered to email Bett to keep her in updated on our progress so far.
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The next day Ginnie and myself decided to visit little man coffee shop as they hadn't emailed us back yet. When we arrived we were introduced to the events manager who told us she was just about to reply to our email and we discussed with her what we were hoping to achieve with this exhibition and what we wanted from them as a venue such as time and dates, it was during the discussion of time and dates that we realised we were not going to be able to have the event at the coffee shop as unfortunately it was fully booked out for the whole month of October.
Also the both of us headed to 3 doors down, which is a creative space where there is ofter art exhibitions and activities going on this would be the perfect venue for us. We spoke to 2 employers that confirmed that the store is unfortunately closed on the dates we wanted but told us that the manager might be willing to open for us as he tends to be quite flexible. They gave us his contact information but unfortunately we never had a reply.
Meanwhile Reiss had contacted john lewis to enquire about spaces they had available, the dates and times available and the prices. It ended up being way too expensive. He had also received an email from urban outfitters by this point asking for us to send them some examples of the type of work that we would be showing at the exhibition. They had also let Reiss know that he would need to contact the head office in London before he could have the space. This was a bit of a set back for us as the whole class was kind of hoping to secure urban outfitters as our first choice, and by having to contact head office our chances of securing the venue were becoming slim.
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As most of our original ideas for venues had pretty much fallen through we decided to look for a few more options. I suggested kin & ilk and tom made contact with them but they didn't have any of the dates available. Because we had a lot of the venues saying the dates were unavailable we tried to work out if we could make any changes to the dates. Tom posted into the group page and tried to find out what dates worked out best for the majority of the class. After deliberation with class it was decided that  the 9th and 10th would probably be the best. Later on the dates were questioned again and the idea of having the exhibition at the weekend were presented.
Ginnie suggested the Castle Emporium as venue and emailed them. Shortly she received a response from them asking for someone to pop by for a visit the next day to view the space they had available from the 12th of October.
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 A little problem then occurred for us as originally none of us from location and logistics had time to go the Castle Emporium that day. To overcome this problem I posted into the group Facebook page and asked if someone from another team preferably the curation team and lucky Lorna and Rebecca offered to go along for us. Then as it turned out the next day Reiss was able to go along with Lorna and Rebecca which was really good for us because he was able to tell us that the venue looked good for what we wanted to do with it. Also he was able to get all the information we needed such as;
Cost: £50 for a 3 day period Dates: Thursday 12th October 3pm - 5:30pm/6:00pm(Private Viewing) 
            Friday 13th & Saturday 14th October 10am - 5:30pm/6:00pm(Open Viewing) Venue Opening Times: 10am Venue Closing Time: Between 5:30pm/6:00pm Set-up Date of Exhibition: Thursday 12th October 10am until 3pm Takedown date & time: Monday 16th October
Here are the photo’s they took to show us what the place looked like:
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It was looking as if the Castle Emporium was going to be out chosen location but before we could confirm it we needed to find out from Sarah what our budget was, It turned out that the budget was £100. This meant that the venue was going to cost half of our budget as it was originally agreed at £50 for the Castle Emporium, we thought that this might cause a little bit of an issue with the rest of the class because they obviously all needed some of the budget for their teams. So we had to get the class together and discuss the budget and how we were going to divide it. During this discussion we all decide that we would put our own contribution towards the budget and then split that amongst us all. It was also decided that we could go ahead and confirm the location.
After the meeting a few more of us went to visit the Castle Emporium and we took the opportunity to briefly confirm that we wanted to use the space as out venue. The manager said that was fantastic and told Reiss who was now her point of contact on behalf of us all to email her if he needed any more details or wanted any more questions answered.
Location & Logistics now came together and made the final decision that the Castle Emporium was our chosen venue and that the dates where the 12th,13th and 14th and as a team our main role was completed and it was now time to start working with the other teams. We needed to firstly figure out the logistics, facilities and decorating of the space along with the Curation team. We will also be handing in our individual illustrations to the Curation team so that they can decide what pieces to show at the expedition. Then the Promotion team will also need to be sent our illustrations so they can advertise speak peaks for the expedition. Another thing we will also need to do is discuss the capacity allowance of the venue and the facilities available in regard to catering with  the Events team.
Our Team had now pretty much completed everything that we needed to and were on hand to just assists and help out any individuals or teams with anything that they needed. 
Personally I helped the Promotion by handing out and distributing leaflets leaflets. 
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Also the day before the exhibition I went along to the venue and asked if curation needed any help at all, they said they didn't need my help but It gave me a chance to take some photos of the setting up in progress. 
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Then on the night of the show I arrived a little while before opening I contributed some Alcoholic beverages, Also Ginnie and myself went along to tiger to collect the items they donated to us as our sponsor for the goody bags. The items they gave us were very random but we did all have fun with these at our after party.
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. I was also helping out with serving drinks and handing out goody bags. It was a really fun opening night and I really enjoyed seeing everybody work displayed. The exhibition gave me the chance to speak to a few new people and I really enjoyed myself. I will be showing Images I took of the final set up in a later post when I reflect on the exhibition on the whole.
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sotina886 · 3 years ago
Text
lawmakers and activists decry police response to attack on US Capitol
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, civil rights leaders and activists blasted law enforcement agencies for their slow response to rioters at the U.S. Capitol, noting the massive show of police force in place for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last ear over police killings of unarmed Black men and women.
Biden said his granddaughter pointed out the unfair difference in images that showed the violence wielded against Black Lives Matter protesters versus the seemingly muted response against those who attacked the U.S. government.
"No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said in remarks to the nation Thursday.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Thursday the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the "two systems of justice" in the U.S.
"We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer," she said on Twitter. "It's simply unacceptable."
Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Ohio and former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, also questioned law enforcement officials' security efforts.
"The Capitol police were unprepared, ineffective and some were complicit. All of them should be held to account," Fudge, who was still in lockdown by the evening and who has been tapped by Biden to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told USA TODAY Wednesday night.
Fudge said there's "no question" the response was different than at last year's Black Lives Matter protests at the Capitol. She shared a picture of a row of police standing guard on the steps of the Capitol.
"There is a double standard,'' she said.
As thousands of people of color and allies took to the streets last year to protest police brutality — most of them peacefully — law enforcement often clashed with demonstrators, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, bruising faces and bodies, and, in one incident that went viral, pushing an elderly man to the ground.
But as thousands of President Donald Trump supporters, mostly white, marched from a campaign-style rally to the Capitol Wednesday and broke into the building as lawmakers were convening to count presidential electoral votes, forcing lawmakers and staff to shelter in place, crowds of law enforcement were notably absent.
Trump, who previously characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as "thugs," said on Twitter that the people involved in the riots Wednesday were "great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he applauded Capitol police officers who bravely stood in the line of duty against the "failed insurrection."
"With that said, yesterday represented a massive failure of institutions, protocols, and planning that are supposed to protect the first branch of our federal government," he said in a statement. "A painstaking investigation and thorough review must now take place and significant changes must follow."
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police defended Thursday his agency’s response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion. Chief Steven Sund said his agency "had a robust plan" for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred Wednesday was "criminal riotous behavior."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., however, called for Sund's resignation and said that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, another key security official, had already submitted his resignation. He reports directly to Pelosi, while Sund answers to both the House and Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll fire the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger once he takes control of the Senate for the GOP later this month.
D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said the mob of Trump supporters came to Capitol Hill "following the president's remarks" and was "intent on causing harm to our officers by deploying chemical irritants on police to force entry into the United States Capitol."
But only a small group of riot police stood outside the back of the Capitol building in the early afternoon, and as rioters called for breaching the building, hundreds started swarming into the area, reporters at the scene noted Wednesday.
As people began climbing up the side of the building and on the back balcony, police appeared to retreat. After the break-in, police attempted to secure one section outside the building but were quickly overwhelmed, according to reporters at the scene.
One video posted to social media showed several people in D.C. Capitol Police jackets removing barriers outside the Capitol building, allowing rioters to pass through to the building. Videos posted to Twitter also showed at least one person who appeared to be an officer taking selfies with people who had breached the Capitol. USA TODAY has not been able to independently verify the identities of the people in these images.
By Wednesday afternoon, Army Gen. Mark Milley said the D.C. National Guard had been fully activated. "We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation," Miller said in a statement.
Several videos shared to social media Wednesday afternoon showed officials slowly escorting people out of the building. One officer in riot gear could be seen helping a white woman in a Trump hat down the Capitol steps, holding her hand, according to a CNN livestream.
By Wednesday evening, nearly a full day after the rioters first clashed with police Tuesday night, officers began using tear gas and percussion grenades to begin clearing crowds, ahead of a 6 p.m. curfew. In the moments before, there were violent clashes between the police and rioters, who tore railing for the inauguration scaffolding and threw it at the officers.
One woman suffered a fatal gunshot wound inside the capitol, Contee said. At least 13 people were arrested, and five firearms were recovered.
By comparison, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked last year's protest movement, more than 100 people were arrested over the course of three days in Minneapolis. In subsequent days, cities across the country arrested dozens of people in a single night, with Los Angeles arresting more than 500 in one day.
"When Black folks are protesting and progressives are protesting peacefully they were tear-gassed, they were arrested, they were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot with real bullets," Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP, said in a telephone interview. "We watched it take place all summer long when people were peacefully demonstrating."
'A fanciful reality':Trump claims Black Lives Matter protests are violent, but the majority are peaceful
Johnson questioned why the Capitol police and other local law enforcement agencies weren’t prepared for thousands of Trump supporters, including the Proud Boys. There had been plenty of warnings on social media and talk shows about the potential for riots, he said.
"We should not be witnessing what we are witnessing today in this nation,'' he said. "It is a global embarrassment.”
Johnson said tens of thousands of people joined protests at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington without this level of violence. "None of this took place," he said.
The majority of Black Lives Matter-affiliated protests over the summer were peaceful, according to a report by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort including Princeton University in New Jersey that collects and analyzes real-time data on demonstrations and political violence in the United States.
Kofi Ademola, a local Chicago activist who helped organize civil rights protests throughout the summer, said he was not surprised Wednesday by the police response.
"It's not any shock that we see this huge contradiction that we can storm a capitol ... break into elected officials’ offices, the chamber, and create other chaos trying to perform a fascist coup, and we see little to no consequences,'' he said.
"But Black protesters here in D.C. and Chicago, we’re heavily policed, brutalized, for literally saying, 'Don’t kill us.' There was no planned insurrections. We were literally just advocating for our lives. It speaks volumes about the values of this country. It doesn’t care about our lives."
CNN commentator Van Jones highlighted the discrepancy in a tweet Wednesday.
"Imagine if #BlackLivesMatter were the ones who were storming the Capitol building," he wrote. "Thousands of black people laying siege to the seat of government – in the middle of a joint session of Congress? Just imagine the reaction."
At the Capitol Wednesday, some lawmakers were holed up in their offices and other places. Several would not say where they were for safety reasons. Staffers were cleared out of the press galleries and the Capitol by the afternoon.
"The after-action review will determine what failures occurred and why,'' said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "The plans should have anticipated the potential for what happened today."
Black Lives Matter Global Network called the law enforcement response to Wednesday's riots hypocritical.
"When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,'' the group said in a statement. "When white people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today."
"Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot,'' the group wrote.
The chaos that unfolded Wednesday stands in particularly harsh contrast to the law enforcement presence seen when U.S. and military police drove protesters out of Lafayette Square, located between the White House and the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, shortly before a presidential photo op with a Bible at the church on June 1. Officers used smoke canisters, shields, pepper balls and horses to force demonstrators from the park.
As violent Trump supporters climbed the steps of the Capitol Wednesday, Trey Williamson, of Burke, Virginia, stood nearby while straddling his bike, arguing with those who would listen. He wore a helmet with Black Lives Matter written on it.
Williamson, a food safety director at a large restaurant, was in Washington, D.C., last year when Trump had the streets cleared so that he could take his photo in front of St. John's. "I got tear-gassed and all I was doing was riding my bike trying to see what was going on," Williamson said.
Lafayette Square photo op:How police pushed protesters aside
He said the police response at the Capitol was lukewarm in comparison to what he experienced during Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. "If there were nothing but Black people up there, there would’ve been a lot of injuries," he said. "It sucks, but I know that this is how it is. I know that because Trump people have felt more comfortable to be at ease with their racism."
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., was holed up in his Capitol Hill office Wednesday as rioters continued their assault on the Capitol. During a Zoom call with reporters, said he and his staff were safe and weren’t leaving. Kind said he intended to return to the House chamber to continue the debate over the certification of electoral votes.
"Things are still not in control, unfortunately," he said.
Kind blamed Trump, who has been reluctant to denounce white nationalists and fraudulently insisted he won the November election, for encouraging the violence Wednesday.
"When he was encouraging the demonstrations, tweeting out that this was going to be quote 'wild.' I mean, what would he expect the reaction would be, especially when you're talking about the Proud Boys, militia groups, white supremacists coming into our nation's capital today," Kind said.
Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., put out a series of statements on Twitter Wednesday calling on law enforcement to engage rioters "with the same humanity and discipline with which they should have engaged people who were outraged by a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck."
"What many are saying is true: If this were Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now," she wrote. "The response tells the story of our nation’s racist history and present. How can we stop it from being the future?"
Contributing: Will Carless, Marco R Della Cava and N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
0 notes
sotina886 · 3 years ago
Text
lawmakers and activists decry police response to attack on US Capitol
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, civil rights leaders and activists blasted law enforcement agencies for their slow response to rioters at the U.S. Capitol, noting the massive show of police force in place for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last ear over police killings of unarmed Black men and women.
Biden said his granddaughter pointed out the unfair difference in images that showed the violence wielded against Black Lives Matter protesters versus the seemingly muted response against those who attacked the U.S. government.
"No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said in remarks to the nation Thursday.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Thursday the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the "two systems of justice" in the U.S.
"We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer," she said on Twitter. "It's simply unacceptable."
Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Ohio and former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, also questioned law enforcement officials' security efforts.
"The Capitol police were unprepared, ineffective and some were complicit. All of them should be held to account," Fudge, who was still in lockdown by the evening and who has been tapped by Biden to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told USA TODAY Wednesday night.
Fudge said there's "no question" the response was different than at last year's Black Lives Matter protests at the Capitol. She shared a picture of a row of police standing guard on the steps of the Capitol.
"There is a double standard,'' she said.
As thousands of people of color and allies took to the streets last year to protest police brutality — most of them peacefully — law enforcement often clashed with demonstrators, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, bruising faces and bodies, and, in one incident that went viral, pushing an elderly man to the ground.
But as thousands of President Donald Trump supporters, mostly white, marched from a campaign-style rally to the Capitol Wednesday and broke into the building as lawmakers were convening to count presidential electoral votes, forcing lawmakers and staff to shelter in place, crowds of law enforcement were notably absent.
Trump, who previously characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as "thugs," said on Twitter that the people involved in the riots Wednesday were "great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he applauded Capitol police officers who bravely stood in the line of duty against the "failed insurrection."
"With that said, yesterday represented a massive failure of institutions, protocols, and planning that are supposed to protect the first branch of our federal government," he said in a statement. "A painstaking investigation and thorough review must now take place and significant changes must follow."
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police defended Thursday his agency’s response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion. Chief Steven Sund said his agency "had a robust plan" for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred Wednesday was "criminal riotous behavior."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., however, called for Sund's resignation and said that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, another key security official, had already submitted his resignation. He reports directly to Pelosi, while Sund answers to both the House and Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll fire the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger once he takes control of the Senate for the GOP later this month.
D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said the mob of Trump supporters came to Capitol Hill "following the president's remarks" and was "intent on causing harm to our officers by deploying chemical irritants on police to force entry into the United States Capitol."
But only a small group of riot police stood outside the back of the Capitol building in the early afternoon, and as rioters called for breaching the building, hundreds started swarming into the area, reporters at the scene noted Wednesday.
As people began climbing up the side of the building and on the back balcony, police appeared to retreat. After the break-in, police attempted to secure one section outside the building but were quickly overwhelmed, according to reporters at the scene.
One video posted to social media showed several people in D.C. Capitol Police jackets removing barriers outside the Capitol building, allowing rioters to pass through to the building. Videos posted to Twitter also showed at least one person who appeared to be an officer taking selfies with people who had breached the Capitol. USA TODAY has not been able to independently verify the identities of the people in these images.
By Wednesday afternoon, Army Gen. Mark Milley said the D.C. National Guard had been fully activated. "We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation," Miller said in a statement.
Several videos shared to social media Wednesday afternoon showed officials slowly escorting people out of the building. One officer in riot gear could be seen helping a white woman in a Trump hat down the Capitol steps, holding her hand, according to a CNN livestream.
By Wednesday evening, nearly a full day after the rioters first clashed with police Tuesday night, officers began using tear gas and percussion grenades to begin clearing crowds, ahead of a 6 p.m. curfew. In the moments before, there were violent clashes between the police and rioters, who tore railing for the inauguration scaffolding and threw it at the officers.
One woman suffered a fatal gunshot wound inside the capitol, Contee said. At least 13 people were arrested, and five firearms were recovered.
By comparison, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked last year's protest movement, more than 100 people were arrested over the course of three days in Minneapolis. In subsequent days, cities across the country arrested dozens of people in a single night, with Los Angeles arresting more than 500 in one day.
"When Black folks are protesting and progressives are protesting peacefully they were tear-gassed, they were arrested, they were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot with real bullets," Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP, said in a telephone interview. "We watched it take place all summer long when people were peacefully demonstrating."
'A fanciful reality':Trump claims Black Lives Matter protests are violent, but the majority are peaceful
Johnson questioned why the Capitol police and other local law enforcement agencies weren’t prepared for thousands of Trump supporters, including the Proud Boys. There had been plenty of warnings on social media and talk shows about the potential for riots, he said.
"We should not be witnessing what we are witnessing today in this nation,'' he said. "It is a global embarrassment.”
Johnson said tens of thousands of people joined protests at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington without this level of violence. "None of this took place," he said.
The majority of Black Lives Matter-affiliated protests over the summer were peaceful, according to a report by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort including Princeton University in New Jersey that collects and analyzes real-time data on demonstrations and political violence in the United States.
Kofi Ademola, a local Chicago activist who helped organize civil rights protests throughout the summer, said he was not surprised Wednesday by the police response.
"It's not any shock that we see this huge contradiction that we can storm a capitol ... break into elected officials’ offices, the chamber, and create other chaos trying to perform a fascist coup, and we see little to no consequences,'' he said.
"But Black protesters here in D.C. and Chicago, we’re heavily policed, brutalized, for literally saying, 'Don’t kill us.' There was no planned insurrections. We were literally just advocating for our lives. It speaks volumes about the values of this country. It doesn’t care about our lives."
CNN commentator Van Jones highlighted the discrepancy in a tweet Wednesday.
"Imagine if #BlackLivesMatter were the ones who were storming the Capitol building," he wrote. "Thousands of black people laying siege to the seat of government – in the middle of a joint session of Congress? Just imagine the reaction."
At the Capitol Wednesday, some lawmakers were holed up in their offices and other places. Several would not say where they were for safety reasons. Staffers were cleared out of the press galleries and the Capitol by the afternoon.
"The after-action review will determine what failures occurred and why,'' said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "The plans should have anticipated the potential for what happened today."
Black Lives Matter Global Network called the law enforcement response to Wednesday's riots hypocritical.
"When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,'' the group said in a statement. "When white people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today."
"Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot,'' the group wrote.
The chaos that unfolded Wednesday stands in particularly harsh contrast to the law enforcement presence seen when U.S. and military police drove protesters out of Lafayette Square, located between the White House and the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, shortly before a presidential photo op with a Bible at the church on June 1. Officers used smoke canisters, shields, pepper balls and horses to force demonstrators from the park.
As violent Trump supporters climbed the steps of the Capitol Wednesday, Trey Williamson, of Burke, Virginia, stood nearby while straddling his bike, arguing with those who would listen. He wore a helmet with Black Lives Matter written on it.
Williamson, a food safety director at a large restaurant, was in Washington, D.C., last year when Trump had the streets cleared so that he could take his photo in front of St. John's. "I got tear-gassed and all I was doing was riding my bike trying to see what was going on," Williamson said.
Lafayette Square photo op:How police pushed protesters aside
He said the police response at the Capitol was lukewarm in comparison to what he experienced during Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. "If there were nothing but Black people up there, there would’ve been a lot of injuries," he said. "It sucks, but I know that this is how it is. I know that because Trump people have felt more comfortable to be at ease with their racism."
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., was holed up in his Capitol Hill office Wednesday as rioters continued their assault on the Capitol. During a Zoom call with reporters, said he and his staff were safe and weren’t leaving. Kind said he intended to return to the House chamber to continue the debate over the certification of electoral votes.
"Things are still not in control, unfortunately," he said.
Kind blamed Trump, who has been reluctant to denounce white nationalists and fraudulently insisted he won the November election, for encouraging the violence Wednesday.
"When he was encouraging the demonstrations, tweeting out that this was going to be quote 'wild.' I mean, what would he expect the reaction would be, especially when you're talking about the Proud Boys, militia groups, white supremacists coming into our nation's capital today," Kind said.
Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., put out a series of statements on Twitter Wednesday calling on law enforcement to engage rioters "with the same humanity and discipline with which they should have engaged people who were outraged by a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck."
"What many are saying is true: If this were Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now," she wrote. "The response tells the story of our nation’s racist history and present. How can we stop it from being the future?"
Contributing: Will Carless, Marco R Della Cava and N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
0 notes
sotina886 · 3 years ago
Text
lawmakers and activists decry police response to attack on US Capitol
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, civil rights leaders and activists blasted law enforcement agencies for their slow response to rioters at the U.S. Capitol, noting the massive show of police force in place for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last ear over police killings of unarmed Black men and women.
Biden said his granddaughter pointed out the unfair difference in images that showed the violence wielded against Black Lives Matter protesters versus the seemingly muted response against those who attacked the U.S. government.
"No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said in remarks to the nation Thursday.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Thursday the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the "two systems of justice" in the U.S.
"We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer," she said on Twitter. "It's simply unacceptable."
Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Ohio and former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, also questioned law enforcement officials' security efforts.
"The Capitol police were unprepared, ineffective and some were complicit. All of them should be held to account," Fudge, who was still in lockdown by the evening and who has been tapped by Biden to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told USA TODAY Wednesday night.
Fudge said there's "no question" the response was different than at last year's Black Lives Matter protests at the Capitol. She shared a picture of a row of police standing guard on the steps of the Capitol.
"There is a double standard,'' she said.
As thousands of people of color and allies took to the streets last year to protest police brutality — most of them peacefully — law enforcement often clashed with demonstrators, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets, bruising faces and bodies, and, in one incident that went viral, pushing an elderly man to the ground.
But as thousands of President Donald Trump supporters, mostly white, marched from a campaign-style rally to the Capitol Wednesday and broke into the building as lawmakers were convening to count presidential electoral votes, forcing lawmakers and staff to shelter in place, crowds of law enforcement were notably absent.
Trump, who previously characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as "thugs," said on Twitter that the people involved in the riots Wednesday were "great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.
Stay safe and informed with updates on the spread of the coronavirus
Delivery: Varies
Your Email
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he applauded Capitol police officers who bravely stood in the line of duty against the "failed insurrection."
"With that said, yesterday represented a massive failure of institutions, protocols, and planning that are supposed to protect the first branch of our federal government," he said in a statement. "A painstaking investigation and thorough review must now take place and significant changes must follow."
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police defended Thursday his agency’s response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion. Chief Steven Sund said his agency "had a robust plan" for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred Wednesday was "criminal riotous behavior."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., however, called for Sund's resignation and said that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, another key security official, had already submitted his resignation. He reports directly to Pelosi, while Sund answers to both the House and Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll fire the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger once he takes control of the Senate for the GOP later this month.
D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said the mob of Trump supporters came to Capitol Hill "following the president's remarks" and was "intent on causing harm to our officers by deploying chemical irritants on police to force entry into the United States Capitol."
But only a small group of riot police stood outside the back of the Capitol building in the early afternoon, and as rioters called for breaching the building, hundreds started swarming into the area, reporters at the scene noted Wednesday.
As people began climbing up the side of the building and on the back balcony, police appeared to retreat. After the break-in, police attempted to secure one section outside the building but were quickly overwhelmed, according to reporters at the scene.
One video posted to social media showed several people in D.C. Capitol Police jackets removing barriers outside the Capitol building, allowing rioters to pass through to the building. Videos posted to Twitter also showed at least one person who appeared to be an officer taking selfies with people who had breached the Capitol. USA TODAY has not been able to independently verify the identities of the people in these images.
By Wednesday afternoon, Army Gen. Mark Milley said the D.C. National Guard had been fully activated. "We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation," Miller said in a statement.
Several videos shared to social media Wednesday afternoon showed officials slowly escorting people out of the building. One officer in riot gear could be seen helping a white woman in a Trump hat down the Capitol steps, holding her hand, according to a CNN livestream.
By Wednesday evening, nearly a full day after the rioters first clashed with police Tuesday night, officers began using tear gas and percussion grenades to begin clearing crowds, ahead of a 6 p.m. curfew. In the moments before, there were violent clashes between the police and rioters, who tore railing for the inauguration scaffolding and threw it at the officers.
One woman suffered a fatal gunshot wound inside the capitol, Contee said. At least 13 people were arrested, and five firearms were recovered.
By comparison, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked last year's protest movement, more than 100 people were arrested over the course of three days in Minneapolis. In subsequent days, cities across the country arrested dozens of people in a single night, with Los Angeles arresting more than 500 in one day.
"When Black folks are protesting and progressives are protesting peacefully they were tear-gassed, they were arrested, they were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot with real bullets," Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP, said in a telephone interview. "We watched it take place all summer long when people were peacefully demonstrating."
'A fanciful reality':Trump claims Black Lives Matter protests are violent, but the majority are peaceful
Johnson questioned why the Capitol police and other local law enforcement agencies weren’t prepared for thousands of Trump supporters, including the Proud Boys. There had been plenty of warnings on social media and talk shows about the potential for riots, he said.
"We should not be witnessing what we are witnessing today in this nation,'' he said. "It is a global embarrassment.”
Johnson said tens of thousands of people joined protests at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington without this level of violence. "None of this took place," he said.
The majority of Black Lives Matter-affiliated protests over the summer were peaceful, according to a report by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort including Princeton University in New Jersey that collects and analyzes real-time data on demonstrations and political violence in the United States.
Kofi Ademola, a local Chicago activist who helped organize civil rights protests throughout the summer, said he was not surprised Wednesday by the police response.
"It's not any shock that we see this huge contradiction that we can storm a capitol ... break into elected officials’ offices, the chamber, and create other chaos trying to perform a fascist coup, and we see little to no consequences,'' he said.
"But Black protesters here in D.C. and Chicago, we’re heavily policed, brutalized, for literally saying, 'Don’t kill us.' There was no planned insurrections. We were literally just advocating for our lives. It speaks volumes about the values of this country. It doesn’t care about our lives."
CNN commentator Van Jones highlighted the discrepancy in a tweet Wednesday.
"Imagine if #BlackLivesMatter were the ones who were storming the Capitol building," he wrote. "Thousands of black people laying siege to the seat of government – in the middle of a joint session of Congress? Just imagine the reaction."
At the Capitol Wednesday, some lawmakers were holed up in their offices and other places. Several would not say where they were for safety reasons. Staffers were cleared out of the press galleries and the Capitol by the afternoon.
"The after-action review will determine what failures occurred and why,'' said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "The plans should have anticipated the potential for what happened today."
Black Lives Matter Global Network called the law enforcement response to Wednesday's riots hypocritical.
"When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,'' the group said in a statement. "When white people attempt a coup, they are met by an underwhelming number of law enforcement personnel who act powerless to intervene, going so far as to pose for selfies with terrorists, and prevent an escalation of anarchy and violence like we witnessed today."
"Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear-gassed, battered, and perhaps shot,'' the group wrote.
The chaos that unfolded Wednesday stands in particularly harsh contrast to the law enforcement presence seen when U.S. and military police drove protesters out of Lafayette Square, located between the White House and the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, shortly before a presidential photo op with a Bible at the church on June 1. Officers used smoke canisters, shields, pepper balls and horses to force demonstrators from the park.
As violent Trump supporters climbed the steps of the Capitol Wednesday, Trey Williamson, of Burke, Virginia, stood nearby while straddling his bike, arguing with those who would listen. He wore a helmet with Black Lives Matter written on it.
Williamson, a food safety director at a large restaurant, was in Washington, D.C., last year when Trump had the streets cleared so that he could take his photo in front of St. John's. "I got tear-gassed and all I was doing was riding my bike trying to see what was going on," Williamson said.
Lafayette Square photo op:How police pushed protesters aside
He said the police response at the Capitol was lukewarm in comparison to what he experienced during Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. "If there were nothing but Black people up there, there would’ve been a lot of injuries," he said. "It sucks, but I know that this is how it is. I know that because Trump people have felt more comfortable to be at ease with their racism."
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., was holed up in his Capitol Hill office Wednesday as rioters continued their assault on the Capitol. During a Zoom call with reporters, said he and his staff were safe and weren’t leaving. Kind said he intended to return to the House chamber to continue the debate over the certification of electoral votes.
"Things are still not in control, unfortunately," he said.
Kind blamed Trump, who has been reluctant to denounce white nationalists and fraudulently insisted he won the November election, for encouraging the violence Wednesday.
"When he was encouraging the demonstrations, tweeting out that this was going to be quote 'wild.' I mean, what would he expect the reaction would be, especially when you're talking about the Proud Boys, militia groups, white supremacists coming into our nation's capital today," Kind said.
Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., put out a series of statements on Twitter Wednesday calling on law enforcement to engage rioters "with the same humanity and discipline with which they should have engaged people who were outraged by a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck."
"What many are saying is true: If this were Black Lives Matter storming the Capitol, tanks would have been in the city by now," she wrote. "The response tells the story of our nation’s racist history and present. How can we stop it from being the future?"
Contributing: Will Carless, Marco R Della Cava and N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
0 notes