After Trump supporters managed to force their way into the U.S. Capitol, community leaders in Boston are questioning why the response looked different during Black Lives Matter protests.
The unrest at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday raised some questions about the differences from how authorities have responded to past protests.
Supporters of President Donald Trump were able to storm the building, interrupting the process of certifying President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
In Boston Wednesday, Black community leaders expressed anger at the riots in Washington.
"My reaction to what we're seeing playing before our eyes is disappointment, is anger, it's frustration," said NAACP board member Michael Curry.
More on the riots at the Capitol
Curry pointed to discrepancies between how Wednesday's riot was handled in contrast with Black Lives Matter protests.
"This is, again, a tale of two Americas," he said. "If you are of privilege and you control police departments, you get one kind of justice and one kind of policing, and you get another type if you are Black or brown in this country."
He echoed similar sentiments from Monica Cannon-Grant, a community leader who helped organize Black Lives Matter protests.
"Watching them climb the side of the building, Black folks would have never been able to get that far, they would have shot us with pepper spray," she said.
Community leaders point out a stark contrast from demonstrations across the country in 2020 where we saw protestors clash with police.
Earlier Wednesday, before the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat were scheduled to play, both teams walked off the court, citing a Wisconsin prosecutor's decision not to charge the police officer who shot Jacob Blake. The teams made reference to the disparity between responses to previous protests and Wednesday's riots.
"2021 is a new year, but some things have not changed. We play tonight's game with a heavy heart after yesterday's decision in Kenosha, and knowing that protesters in our nation's capital are treated differently by political leaders depending on what side of certain issues they are on," the two teams said in a joint statement.
