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Investigations continue in the aftermath of Wednesday’s unprecedented siege at the U.S. Capitol, where a mob estimated at several hundred people clashed with police and breached the building where Congress was convened to certify Electoral College votes.

Meanwhile, a number of local current and former elected officials expressed their shock and horror after watching with the rest of the nation as the day’s stunning events unfolded.

“This was horrific,” former longtime state representative and current Trump Administration appointee Mike Sanders said. “This act of violence should never stand. I am sad for our country to be honest. We’re better than this.”

“I never want to discourage people from getting involved and speaking out that they are not pleased with the way things are going, but there is absolutely no need and should be no tolerance for violence,” State Rep. Mike Dobrinski, Sanders’ Dist. 59 successor, said.

“I was at the (state) Capitol all day yesterday and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing happening in Washington,” State Sen. Darcy Jech of Kingfisher said. “How can that be our country?”

“The First Amendment prevents the government from abridging our freedom of speech and allows people to peaceably assemble. Assembling and stating your beliefs is a constitutional right,” Associate District Judge Lance Schneiter said. “However, the looting of buildings and the loss of life will never constitute peaceable assembly.

“This is true whether the actions happen in Washington, D.C., Portland or here in Oklahoma.”

5 Deaths Reported

A 35-year-old woman from California was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer and another Capitol Police officer died Thursday night of injuries sustained during the attack, according to a statement issued by Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund.

Sund himself resigned his position later Thursday night after coming under fire for his department’s alleged lack of preparedness for the attack.

Ashli Babbitt, 35, a 14-year Air Force veteran, was reported shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer who was not named in the official statement.

A video circulating on social media showed a woman later identified as Babbitt in a crowd attempting to breach a barricaded interior door to the Speaker’s Lobby just outside the House chamber.

The woman is seen attempting to climb through a broken interior window as officers on the other side are shouting at her to stop. She’s shot and falls back onto the floor.

The unnamed officer who fired the shot has been suspended pending an investigation, according to the official statement

The police officer who died Thursday was identified as Brian D. Sicknick, who was reportedly injured in the melee and then collapsed when he returned to his unit.

The DC Metropolitan Police reported that three other people died from “medical issues” on the Capitol grounds in the course of the siege: Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Ala.; Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Ga., and Benjamin Phillips, of Pa.

Two pipe bombs were found off Capitol grounds, one each at the headquarters of Democrat and Republican National Committees.

The bombs were both described as “hazardous devices that could cause great harm to pubic safety” and were disabled and handed over to the FBI.

However, no information has been released as to whether the bombs were planted by the same people responsible for the Capitol siege.

Trump Response

After a tumultuous Thursday that included outcries from Democrats and others for Trump’s removal from office and possible criminal prosecution for allegedly inciting the incident and the resignation of one cabinet member and a White House aide, Trump released a video Thursday night denouncing what he described as “a heinous attack on the United States Capitol.

“The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have deified the seat of American democracy,” the President said. “To those who have engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you don’t represent our country And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”

Those calling for Trump’s head insist that the President’s words and actions incited his supporters to advance on the Capital and provoked what turned into a violent and destructive rampage.

Andrew Spiropoulos, constitutional law scholar, Oklahoma City University School of Law professor and Milton Friedman Distiguished Fellow, told the Times and Free Press that Trump leaving early with the inauguration just two weeks away “isn’t to

“He’s not going to resign and he’s not going to get impeached before Jan. 20,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely that there wffibe any scenario where he leaves office early.

“I honestly think the best way to deal with the President at this point is to just ignore him. Just leave him

Conflicting Messages

Kingfisher resident Joy Ludwig, a Trump supporter who was in Washington for the Trump “Save America” rally that preceded the incursion into the Capitol, said she didn’t hear any language from Trump that encouraged violence.

“He told us he wanted us to go march and make our voices heard and that’s what we did,” she said.

Her recollection is similar to a quote from Trump’s speech that appeared in a timeline in USA TodgyFriday:

“We’re going to walk down there and cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women,” Trump said.

Spiropoulos said Trump mightbe viewed as “responsible to a certain degree because he created an atmosphere” where some people felt that storming the Capitol was an appropriate response.

“But the people who are criminally responsible for the riot are the people who rioted,” he said. “That’s who needs to be held accountable. That’s who needs to be identified and prosecuted.”

Who Are They?

Exactly who those people are is part of the ongoing investigation.

Dozens have been arrested and some 55 charges already have been filed by federal prosecutors.

The Washington, D.C., Metro Police Force, one of the agencies participating in the investigation, has released dozens of photos to social media taken inside the Capitol during the siege, asking for help identifying the individuals depicted.

Spiropoulos said that is exactly the aggressive approach needed to hold the actual perpetrators accountable.

He said prosecutors in Oklahoma City took the a similar approach last summer when protests there turned destructive.

“The district attorney here took videos right off the perpetrator’s social media accounts and found many of the people who created the violent acts by looking at those records.”

Ludwig is among the many Trump supporters who contends that the violent actors were actually infiltrators “impersonating patriots” in an effort to discredit the patriot movement

“I think Antifa was infiltrated with us on purpose to make us look bad,” she said. “And they did a good job because look at what the media is saying.”

However, some of those already identified and charged as part of the mob have documented histories in social media and even prior TV interviews as staunch Trump supporters.

But Sanders pointed out that even if Trump supporters were among those wreaking havoc, “I would say that 99 percent of the folks that were there were peaceful. I feel for them.

“I can’t imagine what those people were thinking and feeling who were there just to support the electoral votes and then all that other started going on.”

Sanders agreed that the actual rioters “absolutely should be prosecuted at the highest level.”

“It’s not even close to being all Trump supporters who support that kind of activity, much less all Republicans,” he said. “But that’s how it’s being portrayed in some media.”

How Do We Recover?

The damage from Wednesday’s events is potentially far-reaching.

Several people who talked to the Times and Free Press Thursday expressed concern for how the U.S. will be perceived outside its borders.

“It makes it look like we don’t have a functioning democracy,” Spiropolous said. “It’s always been the case that we had peaceful transitions and suddenly when we don’t it really just undermines what our entire democracy is about”

Figuring out what happened and how not to allow it to happen again is crucial, Sanders said.

“That’s why we’ve got to let the dust settle and let this investigation take it’s course so we can find some of those answers,” he said.

One of the concerns expressed by many is the failure of the Capitol Police to stop the incursion.

“Why weren’t they more prepared?” Sanders said. “Why not more precautions?”

Ludwig said the security surrounding the massive rally was “pretty much nonexistant.”

“No one was searching bags, no one was checking for weapons, none of that,” she said. “We hardly saw any police at all except for a few on horseback and they weren’t really paying attention.”

The tougher step will be addressing the divisiveness that seems to have the entire country on opposite sides of a chasm, Spiropoulos said.

“I’m hoping that the new president will see this as an opportunity to try to reach out to the other side,” he said. “I’m hoping that what will happen is that it will force everyone’s attention on what needs to happen in this country and that we need to have an understanding of what the other side is saying and that there’s a possibility that sometimes you are wrong and the other side may have a point.”

The media isn’t helping by using “loaded terms like `terrorism’

“It’s horrible what happened, but it wasn’t ISIS storming the Capitol,” he said.

“If you’re trying to persuade people to work together toward the common good, it doesn’t help that you’re making them angry,” he said.

“Mainstream media outlets have laid this whole thing at the feet of Republicans,” Sanders said. “It’s tough to bring a country together when you have those kinds of accusations.”

Pence offered some encouragement in his opening speech to the reconvened Congress after the attack:

“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins,” Pence said.

“And this is still the people’s house.”