Jensen tried to make sense of what had happened, the wealth of video and camera images somehow only making it more complex. For a good thirty minutes after the first shots were fired, there was complete turmoil from the western steps of the Capitol for a hundred yards into the National Mall, the D.C. police the only ones able to bring some semblance of order out of the chaos. A dozen uniformed FBI agents had been attacked by angry protestors, their only motivation the shouted claims that the FBI had shot Thorn. Police and undercover agents had created protected areas, but some agents had been forced to use their weapons as a last resort.
The tumult of those first minutes had left scores injured, demonstrators trying to help where they could, the waiting ambulances struggling to cope. Social media acted as the most effective news source, although not always the most reliable. Witnesses told of an FBI agent – male, mid-thirties, wearing FBI jacket and cap – using a handgun to fire four shots at Thorn; others said that two or even three agents were involved. The shooter had then immediately been tackled by several demonstrators, who in turn were set upon by more FBI agents.
The photographs revealed the chaos of those later moments, several showing the suspected shooter, together with Anderson and Flores rushing in to protect him. Other images were more upsetting, some just as dramatic: a young mother kneeling broken-hearted beside her injured child, a man trying to comfort his friend, face covered in blood – a thousand similar photos appeared within minutes.
Six dead so far, including one FBI agent and the young woman marshal; scores injured. Dick Thorn had refused to go to hospital, a bullet merely nicking his arm. Together with Mayor Henry, he had tried to keep the demonstration non-violent, but the animosity towards the authorities had found a convenient and close target, namely the Capitol Building. A drone camera showed a near riot outside the east entrance, the Capitol’s own police barricaded inside. The D.C. police were struggling to regain control, unwilling to use tear gas until all other options had been exhausted.
To the west, everything was relatively calm: one group of protestors milled around in the National Mall adjacent to the lower terrace, a second group remained south of the White House. The numbers had dropped significantly from the maximum of around a million, down now to perhaps a quarter of that number.
More difficult to assess was who had actually started the shooting and precisely what had then happened to them. None of the official cameras had caught those first four shots, and so far there was no visual evidence on social media. Several witnesses claimed that the dead agent was the shooter, although his gun had conveniently gone missing.
Then there was Anderson’s version, a mix of what he claimed to have seen plus a fair bit of guesswork: Lavergne was the shooter, with Preston and McDowell muddying the water by attacking two nearby agents. In the ensuing chaos, Lavergne had somehow slipped away, leaving the FBI to take the blame.
It made a certain sort of sense, Jensen not needing photographic confirmation to know that Anderson was probably right. To reduce the danger of revenge attacks, the FBI had again been forced to pull back their uniformed agents from the National Mall, and any chance of catching McDowell and his two associates seemed to have passed. McDowell’s role looked to be finally complete, and it was left to several hundred thousand protestors to chant and jeer outside Congress. A vote was seen as being close, Deangelo having to trust that a few more Republicans would put the needs of their country ahead of any selfish party politics.
The air battle in the South China Sea had ratcheted up tensions still further, both sides taking a step back, with China and the U.S. voluntarily suspending air patrols near to areas of potential conflict. There was no disagreement that a Super Hornet from the Gerald Ford had fired first; what was in dispute was whether a pair of Chinese J-15s had ignored warnings and actually penetrated the U.S. exclusion zone.
To some in Washington, it was almost a relief that America had finally shown some backbone, the three-to-one score a suitably equitable outcome, especially with the Hornet’s crew successfully rescued. Each such incident merely added to the heat on Congress, the need for a decisive vote increasing by the hour.