It’s pretty well known and was widely reported and photographed at the time that some rioters set up a gallows with the ostensible intention of hanging “traitors”. But though I found that one of the more shocking aspects of the riot, I’ve seen little-to-no follow up detailed reporting about it.
Have the builders been identified and arrested? What exactly is known about their intentions? How premeditated was it? And so on.
I’ve seen a lot about all sorts of relatively minor cases of people being arrested and charged with lesser offenses, and it’s striking that nothing - to my knowledge - has come out about this. Or have I missed it?
It would depend a lot on what they can turn up about the intent of the people who built the gallows, and it can be hard to get that kind of evidence of intent. Lots of times, you can infer intent from the circumstances, but that is not so likely here.
With the gallows, there’s going to be an argument that it was set up merely as a symbol, and not with the intent to harm anyone. Hanging people in effigy, for example, is not that unusual of a protest action. So, you’d likely need more direct evidence of intent, like the people who built it – assuming you can identify them specifically – making express plans about actually using it to hang someone. Much harder to get that sort of evidence than to get evidence on the people who were breaking the law by being inside the building, or stealing things, etc.
In no way defending those that built it. But, based upon the photo in the OP’s link, there’s no way it would support anybody weighing more than 85 pounds. It is crudely put together for appearance, not to be a functional gallows.
I don’t think it matters if their plan was actually workable. What matters is their actions and their intent. Speaking of intent, from Insider, here’s a little bit about Pauline Bower:
Prosecutors said Bauer can be heard in body camera footage saying, “Bring them out. We want them out here… You bring them out or we’re coming in. BRing [sic] them out now. They’re criminals. They need to hang. Bring her out. Bring Nancy Pelosi out here now. We want to hang that f------ b----. Bring her out. We’re coming in if you don’t bring her out. What are you trying to protect a f------ Nazi. Is that what you’re protecting?”
Unless it was Bauer that built the ineffective gallows, it would hard to link her comments to those that built it. A competent defense attorney would shoot enough holes in that argument, that the case would get thrown out before the arraignment.
I’ve seen pictures where it’s clear the gallows height (the height from the platform to the upper beam) was about 5 feet. In no way was this a working gallows. Not defending it, but it was clearly a model not a workable thing.
It’s true that that gallows was not built to be a functional gallows. So what?
What’s also true is that if that mob had gotten hold of Nancy Pelosi, or Mike Pence (or, God help her, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), they would have killed them.
Once you get the noose around somebody’s neck & kick their legs out from under them they’re going to strangle. It’ll be slow and noisy and gruesome, but it’ll definitely be fatal unless the good guys intervene pretty quickly.
