With Kansas Capitol in lockdown mode, Inauguration Day protest fizzles
Kansas Capitol Police Officer Lamont Jackson sat alone in the south gallery of the Statehouse, watching the inauguration of President Joe Biden unfold on his phone.
“This wasn’t what I expected,” he said. “According to the media outlets, there might be some protesters out here. That’s what I expected, you know?”
Jackson was one of dozens of Capitol police and state troopers stationed at the Statehouse to guard the building against the possibility of a redux of Jan. 6. On that day, some supporters of former President Donald Trump did enter the statehouse in sympathy with the much larger and more violent Capitol storming in Washington.
On Wednesday, security at the Kansas Capitol was heavy. Legislative business was minimal and the building closed to the public, with patrol cars parked nose-to-nose across the entrance to the Capitol visitor center and dozens of officers guarding every entrance and driving slowly around the grounds.
But at the moment that Biden was taking the oath of office in Washington, the total number of protesters on the Capitol grounds in Topeka stood at five — two men supporting Trump and two men and a boy ridin’ with Biden.
The most visible Trumper was Ed Myers, a regular attendee of the Wichita Pachyderm Club and Newton resident known for his collection of pro-Republican and anti-Democrat signs, which he is wont to display in front of his house.
On Wednesday, Myers stood at the southeast corner of the Capitol grounds waiving a sign that said “Honk if socialism sucks.”
He bought along about 15 other signs which he planted street-side, the general gist of which was that Biden’s corrupt.
“I was very disappointed in the election because I thought Biden was elected through fraud and deceit,” Myers said. “I think there was at least six states that showed they did illegal things to elect Biden. The courts wouldn’t even recognize it so I think Biden is an illegitimate president.”
The pro-Biden contingent consisted of three generations of the Bonsall family from Topeka — Graham Bonsall, his father Jim and son Caius.
Graham Bonsall said he didn’t have any major policy disagreements with Trump’s presidency, but felt he needed to do something when Trump and his followers attacked the integrity of the election without evidence to back it up.
“You can’t run an actual democracy on lies,” he said. “After the election took place, people started to dismantle democracy rather than support it and try to re-elect their own party officials again. Just take part in the system rather than destroy it.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 2:54 PM.
