Photos of the destruction at the U.S. Capitol are circulating social media after hundreds of demonstrators entered the building on Wednesday during rallies in support of President Donald Trump’s challenges to the 2020 U.S. election.
The Hill tweeted, “Video shows damage left behind in the office of a Senate Parliamentarian and her staff, located on the first floor of the Capitol, right next to one of the main doors that was breached.”
NBC Congressional Correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell tweeted, “The Capitol is mostly empty this morning but many remnants of yesterday remain. Four bullet holes in the glass of the doors that lead to the House Capitol steps.”
In a second tweet, she said, “And this is where the woman was shot. These are the doors to get into the ‘Speaker’s Lobby’ off the House chamber. Three pains of glass missing. One is shattered. Shards of glass remain on the floor.”
D.C. Metropolitan Police (MPD) said the woman shot Wednesday was killed by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer. She has been identified by family members as Ashli Babbit, a 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran. Babbit was one of four people who died during the incident Wednesday. Another woman and two men died after what MPD described as “medical emergencies.”
“These are the doors to the center steps. Where they first breached the Capitol. They are cast in iron from Italy and moved here in the 1860s or earlier. Double paned glass shattered,” Caldwell again tweeted.
“This is just outside those doors,” Caldwell said with another photo showing debris left at the Capitol doors.
Caldwell also shared video of markings left on the doorways at the Capitol.
In a photo showing a pair of damaged benches, Caldwell tweeted, “Important to note that these are the doors that Joe Biden would use to enter the Capitol to get to the West Front of the Capitol for inauguration. The same doors Trump walked through and presidents before him. These destroyed iron benches are in the entry.”
Yahoo News reporter Hunter Walker tweeted exterior video of busted windows at the Capitol.
CNN also tweeted photos of some of the damage at the Capitol.
New York Post reporter Steven Nelson shared video of a demonstrator spraying a fire extinguisher inside the building Wednesday.
New York reporter Samantha-Jo Roth tweeted, “More damage this AM inside the U.S. Capitol. There’s a significant amount of maintenance staff and law enforcement here cleaning up.”
