Former county resident witnesses D.C. chaos

Ginger Spiess, a former Moose Lake resident who now lives in Ramsey, Minnesota, had just 10 minutes to prepare for a trip to Washington D.C. on Jan. 4 for what turned out to be an infamous week after protestors stormed the Capitol on her second day there.

The backlash led to the impeachment of President Donald Trump Wednesday, the second time the U.S. House of Representatives has done so.

For Spiess, the events that led to her proximity to the actions on Jan. 6 were an accident.

"It had never been on my bucket list to go to Washington, D.C.," she said in an interview Tuesday. "I was a country girl and thought that it would be too busy and crazy."

"A friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to attend a Stop the Steal rally," she said. "Another person that was going had canceled at the last minute. The airline ticket and hotel stay would be at no cost to me."

She was fresh off a trip to see her son in Oklahoma but jumped at the chance for a free trip to Washington. She believed what she had been hearing, that Trump had actually won the November election. (Editor's note: Recounts and court cases have disproved allegations that the election results were wrong.)

Spiess quickly packed and the two went to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and caught a plane for Washington. They were taken to their hotel, located just three blocks from the Capitol. The room had a wonderful view of it, she said.

The two friends spent Tuesday morning walking around Washington and taking pictures. They also went to a rally, a warm-up for an expected larger rally on Wednesday.

She described the people who gathered Tuesday for a rally that started at 1 p.m. and was scheduled to last until 8 p.m.

"The majority of the people

were in their 50s and 60s," she said. "There were also elderly and

disabled people."

She was struck by what she called the number of "immigrant-type" people there. "We also saw a lot of preachers and Christians there. They opened up the rally with praise and worship."

"I was cold and my friend was cold, so people wrapped us up," Spiess said. "We stayed for three hours and then we went to a restaurant to warm up and use the facilities. We went back to the hotel and we listened to the rest of it on the phone."

Spiess described herself as an observer.

"We wanted to listen to the speakers but the whole thing felt disorganized," she said. "It was more of a show than anything else. They said that there were maybe 5,000 people in the crowd. It wasn't a huge crowd yet. We didn't see any coverage on the network TV stations. It was really low-key."

The large crowd arrived the next day: Wednesday, Jan. 6.

"There were rumors that there were busloads and planeloads of people coming in," Spiess said.

They went back to the rally site and ended up in the middle of the throng. "They had big TV screens so we could sort of see the speakers. Some people climbed up in the trees. They were packed in there and we were right in the middle."

Spiess felt uneasy when a man next to her had a full backpack.

"There was a guy next to me in camo (camouflage fabric)," she said. "He had a big backpack and it was full. He looked suspicious to me."

When she asked what he had in his backpack, he referred to countering an anti-fascism terrorist group: "Antifa had enough supplies for three days."

Spiess and her friend listened to a few speeches.

"Rudy Giuliani spoke but we couldn't really hear him well," she said.

A march was planned but Spiess and her friend headed back to the hotel, giving up the opportunity to see the president speak in person.

"I didn't want to get caught up in a march," she said. "Sometimes, when you get into something like that, you can't get out."

The two continued to watch the speeches on TV.

"When we were watching the president's speech on TV, the screen was split," Spiess said. "The hearing was going on in the Capitol and someone was reading a letter for Vice President Mike Pence."

"All of a sudden, a third screen came on TV and showed things going on at the Capitol," Spiess said. "And we started hearing the sirens of police cars heading towards the Capitol. President Trump was still talking. He was rambling and not saying anything that he hadn't said before."

Trump's speech lasted from noon to about 1:10 p.m., according to a timeline published in the Washington Post. He ended by urging his followers to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, which they did at about 1:30 p.m.

There were already protesters there, some who started breaking through the outer barricades west of the Capitol building around 1 p.m. as senators and Pence walked to the House chamber. Congress met in a joint session starting at 1:05 p.m.

According to the timeline, a mob breached the Capitol building around 2:15 p.m. by breaking windows and climbing inside, then letting others in through doors. Congress adjourned and began to evacuate about five minutes later.

"All hell was breaking loose," Spiess said. She was still three blocks away in her hotel room. "We basically watched it unfold on TV. We heard that someone was killed."

Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot and killed by an officer when she was leading a crowd trying to enter the barricaded Speaker's Lobby through a broken window of a door just before 3:15 p.m., according to reports. Babbitt, from California, had previously livestreamed part of her walk toward the Capitol after the president's speech.

At 4 p.m. a larger crowd overpowered police and stormed into the building, chanting "treason" and "our house." Thousands of rioters entered the building.

Spiess said she and her friend took a walk just before dusk to see what was going on.

"The police were just standing there, and people were standing on the steps of the Capitol," she said.

"There were also people standing on the scaffolding. Nobody seemed to be in any hurry to leave. We did not see any scuffles."

When National Guard units arrived, Spiess and her friend went back to the hotel.

Shortly before 5 p.m. law enforcement officials began moving to break up the mob, using flash bangs and other riot control tools. The interior of the building was secured by around 6 p.m. By then, protesters were outnumbered by law enforcement.

"People started coming into the hotel," Spiess said. "They were talking about conspiracy theories."

It was time to return to Minnesota the next day.

"There was a loudmouth guy on our plane who said that he was a patriot," Spiess said. "Everyone was sick of listening to him."

Spiess arrived home and watched more about the events on Wednesday. She said she was horrified to learn how close she had been to danger.

"Later, I heard that there were pipe bombs found (at Republican National Committee headquarters and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington)," Spiess said. "And here we had been walking around taking pictures."

Spiess said if she were given the opportunity to go again, she would go, but more as an observer. Still, she said what she participated in was peaceful, and said that what she later saw on the news did not reflect her experience. She feels the mob that broke into the Capitol are in the same category as those in Minneapolis who looted and burned buildings last summer.

She also left with a somber feeling.

"I believe this country is in a worse place than I thought," she said.