Live Protests Today: Tracking the Capitol and Demonstrations Across Country - The New York Times

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An armed demonstrator standing outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin on Sunday. — Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

The atmosphere was tense in Washington, D.C., and at statehouses across the country on Sunday, as several armed groups arrived at state capitols, where military vehicles and police barricades lined the streets and officials braced for pro-Trump protests that they feared could lead to violence.

While some armed protesters arrived at state capitol buildings in Ohio, Texas, Oregon and Michigan, the grounds of statehouses across the country were largely quiet on Sunday, even as many states had fortified the buildings with an influx of National Guard troops.

Still, officials were readying for the potential of violent protests in the coming days — leading up to the presidential inauguration on Wednesday — after the F.B.I. warned that armed protesters could target capital cities across the country.

On Sunday, about 25 members of the antigovernment extremist “boogaloo” movement were among the heavily armed protesters who gathered at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. But the men — who are part of a group that hopes a second civil war will lead to the U.S. government’s overthrow — said they were there for a long-planned gun rights rally that they insisted had nothing to do with President Trump.

Henry Locke, 27, of the Ohio chapter of the Boogaloo Boys, said he and other members had planned a unity rally to bring different groups together under the Constitution. Many in his group carried military-style rifles, wore camouflage vests and carried ammunition.

“Here in Ohio, we advocate for everyone’s individual liberties equally,” Mr. Locke said.

A handful of Mr. Trump’s supporters did appear at the Ohio rally, as did a group of counterprotesters, but the groups largely milled about peacefully, occasionally trading insults.

At least 19 states deployed National Guard troops to their capitols, and several shut down statehouse grounds and delayed legislative sessions in response to the F.B.I. warning.

Video player loading — In Michigan, government officials and law enforcement prepared for the possibility of significant violence ahead of the inauguration, but by Sunday’s end only a small group of armed protesters had ventured to the state capitol.Yousur Al-Hlou/The New York Times

Austin, Texas: Protesters began gathering in the morning at the Texas State Capitol, which the state had closed out of concerns over the protest. Armed officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety patrolled the rolling Capitol grounds and guarded the entrance to the nearby governor’s mansion.

Daniel Hunter, a 34-year-old handyman, said he had driven from Waco to attend the protest. “The only reason I’m here is to ensure that no one storms the Capitol,” Mr. Hunter said. “If they do, I’ll get in front of them and be trampled.”

Another protester lounged against a stone wall, holding a semiautomatic rifle and smoking a cigarette. He declined to give his name and said that he, too, was there of his own accord, to “observe what was going on.”

There was at least one anti-Trump demonstrator, Andrea Ariel, a 63-year-old dance teacher who wore a sandwich board designed to look like a post office box. She danced to a recording of Stevie Wonder’s song, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” with an American flag in one hand and a sign reading “Democracy is for Everyone” in the other.

— Michael Hardy
Salem, Ore.: Five men dressed in military-style clothing marched onto the grounds of the park across the street from the Oregon State Capitol around 10:30 a.m. They waved flags, including an upside-down American flag, and one held a “Disarm the Government!” sign made with marker on a white poster.

“We want to show the rest of the country that we have rights,” said one of the protesters.

The five men, who declined to give their names, insisted that they were not part of any group or organization. “We don’t support Trump, and we don’t support Biden,” the man with the patch said.

“We always end up losing rights, whoever’s in office,” added another, his face hidden by a mask.

By noon, the number of protesters had climbed to nine. Three counterprotesters stood by and the two sides argued.

Ace, who is in his mid-20s and from the greater Portland area, wore a military-style combat uniform with built-in kneepads, helmet, and camouflage Vans. An AK-47 was strapped across his chest. He also carried 120 rounds of ammunition, a pistol, and a knife.

“We’re not here to intimidate people,” he said, “and if people are intimidated, I apologize for that, but that’s not my concern.”

“The people I hope are intimidated are the people sitting right there,” he said, gesturing toward the Capitol Building. “We are an example of people who voted for them in hopes they would do what they said they were going to do when they were elected. They did the opposite.”

By 1:00 p.m., most of the small crowd was gone.

— Emily Shetler
Lansing, Mich: A small group of people armed with military-style weapons gathered in front of the State Capitol on Sunday morning, but with National Guard troops and State Police surrounding the building, nearly all of the protesters who had shown up were gone by early afternoon.

“That’s why I’m here, because my vote got stolen,” said Richard Maurer, 65, a small business owner from Owosso. “Biden is never going to be my president. I’m going to fight him whenever I get the chance.”

Among the armed men in Michigan were also adherents of the “boogaloo” movement, who warned that the government was the enemy that protesters should be focused on.

“I’m not here to fight anybody, but I’m not going to keep quiet either, ” said a man in a Trump hat who said he was from Greenville but declined to give his name because, he said, his bosses are a “bunch of libs” who might not look kindly on his participation in the protest.

There was also an unexpected sign of support for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has for months been the target of right-wing protesters. Lorence Wenke, a former Republican state representative from Kalamazoo, had a large sign attached to his pickup truck outside the Capitol that thanked Ms. Whitmer for her “leadership, grace and integrity.”

“I wanted to be here as one person representing what I think most of the population of Michigan thinks, and that is that she’s doing a good job,” said Mr. Wenke, who switched from the Republican to the Libertarian party and who had served with Ms. Whitmer in the legislature.

— Kathleen Gray

Sacramento, Calif.

Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Phoenix, Ariz.

Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Harrisburg, Pa.

Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Lansing, Mich.

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Columbus, Ohio

Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times
St. Paul, Minn.

Octavio Jones for The New York Times
Austin, Texas

Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
Richmond, Va.

Go Nakamura for The New York Times
Atlanta, Ga.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times
Harrisburg, Pa.

Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Jefferson City, Mo.

Whitney Curtis for The New York Times
Olympia, Wash.

Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Denver, Colo.

Stephen Speranza for The New York Times

As a riot unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Police Officer Michael Fanone was swarmed by people who tore off his police radio and reached for his service weapon. He recalled hearing someone yell out, “Kill him with his own gun!”

On Sunday, federal investigators said they were searching for seven men in connection with the assault on Officer Fanone of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. In a bulletin spread on social media, law enforcement officials asked for help identifying the men, circulating grainy images of them wedged into the crowd that day.

On Twitter, people soon began responding with additional images from the melee of the men the F.B.I. said they were seeking information on.

Since the riot took place, F.B.I. agents have been working to find people who illegally entered the Capitol and have also sought to interview people already under investigation in connection with other domestic terrorism cases to stamp out potential threats, officials said.

Officer Fanone drew widespread attention after an interview on CNN in which he described the violent attack by rioters and his efforts to protect himself.

He said he considered firing his weapon to defend himself. “The other option was try to appeal to someone’s humanity,” Officer Fanone said, adding that he began calling in the chaos that he had children. Soon, some in the crowd started to encircle and shield him from others in the mob.

The crowds were sparse on Sunday in Washington, D.C., but law enforcement and National Guard troops remained on high alert, hoping to head off any repeat of the riot earlier this month, when President Trump’s supporters breached the nation’s Capitol.

Indications of the increased security were all around. A militarized “green zone” grew downtown, as streets were blocked by concrete barricades and military vehicles. Pentagon officials said that 15,000 National Guard members from all 50 states and 3 territories had arrived in Washington by Saturday, and that as many as 25,000 could arrive by Wednesday.

Federal officials are vetting hundreds of possible airplane passengers, putting any who have been identified among the violent protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 on a “no fly list.” The Transportation Security Administration added federal marshals on flights and explosive-detection dogs at airports.

Here is what our reporters were seeing on Sunday in the capital of a nation on edge.

On the corner of Third Street and East Capitol Street, three people took pictures together while holding anti-abortion signs, as the Capitol towered in the background. Two of them held a banner that said, “End abortion violence.” One woman holding the banner, Brandi Swindell, said she flew in from Boise, Idaho, to peacefully speak out against abortion, as she has done for the last 20 years when the anniversary of Roe v. Wade nears on Jan. 22.

Ms. Swindell, the founder of Stanton Public Policy Center, an anti-abortion group, said she recognized fully that it was a “unique time,” but regardless wanted to come out and “be an example that you can be peaceful and get your message out.” Ms. Swindell, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 because of his anti-abortion stance, said that she condemned the violence on Jan. 6 and had been “offended” to see people attack the Capitol.

She said she felt that now, more than ever, was a critical time for her to come express her beliefs — without violence and while respecting law enforcement. Ms. Swindell, 44, was encouraged that despite the attack on the Capitol, she could nonetheless come out and hold her signs up high. “We are still America, we are still free, we can still raise a banner,” she said. “This will be a day I remember for the rest of my life.”

— Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio

The corner of Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue was a scene from an occupied city. A tall, stiff metal fence blocked the public from getting any closer to the Capitol, 500 yards to the east. Inside the fence, soldiers holding military weapons stood talking near a large jumble of cardboard boxes and water bottles. Dozens more were getting off a large black and orange bus.

Traffic lights over the intersection cycled uselessly between red to green. The Capitol gleamed in the sunlight, with five American flags hanging vertically just beneath the dome.

Secret Service agents were checking the wheels and interiors of cars parked along an otherwise quiet Massachusetts Avenue.

— Sabrina Tavernise and Elizabeth Dias
Pedestrians seemed more curious than worried, walking with dogs and drink cups, looking at how much of the city had been blocked off with barricades. A small group of National Guard soldiers stood on 17th Street just north of K Street, a couple of blocks from the White House, looking at their phones and nodding at passers-by.

Shortly before 9 a.m., at Black Lives Matter Plaza on 16th Street, Smokey Sims, 33, was doing a little dance to a Wilco song blasting from a speaker, with the lyric “All you fascists were born to lose.” Was he nervous about what might happen today? “We got the military out here, so we’re good,” he answered.

“I pray nothing happen, but even if it does, I feel like we’re protected,” he added. “Most of the cops here, they’re protecting us. And look at all those National Guard,” he said, motioning toward a group of soldiers walking by on I Street.

— Sabrina Tavernise

Mr. Warnock campaigning earlier this month. — Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York Times

The Rev. Raphael Warnock on Sunday preached a message of equity, integrity and possibility from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, drawing parallels between the turmoil now gripping the nation and the mission pursued by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The pulpit at Ebenezer in Atlanta, which had once belonged to Dr. King and is one of the most prominent religious perches in the South, had been a springboard for Mr. Warnock, the church’s senior pastor who was elected as a Democrat this month to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.

In a special sermon tied to Dr. King’s national holiday on Monday, Mr. Warnock noted that the struggles that he is fighting reflect the ways the ones Dr. King had confronted have endured and evolved. Toward the end of his life, Dr. King was focused on poverty, a struggle punishing African-Americans but a fight that also transcended race. Dr. King went to Memphis, where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, for a strike of Black sanitation workers, whose anger over low pay and dilapidated equipment ignited after two workers were crushed by a malfunctioning garbage truck.

Now, more than 50 years later, Mr. Warnock said, people were still being “crushed in the machinery of systems that don’t care about them.”

He pointed to the weakened purchasing power of a minimum-wage income, and noted the lower wages of workers whose jobs have been critical during the pandemic — “Call them essential workers,” he said, “but refuse to pay them an essential wage.”

Mr. Warnock read from the Book of Isaiah: “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.” He contended that those words underscored a divine mandate to create a level playing field.

“The folk who are accustomed to sitting high,” Mr. Warnock said, “must come down just a little so that folk who sit so low can come up a little.”

He said the rancor rippling through the country was a reflection of an “unleashing of unembarrassed racism.”

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, parity and equity and equality may feel like oppression,” Mr. Warnock said. “That’s what the current backlash is all about.”

National Guard Soldiers rest between shifts in the Visitor Center in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Wednesday. — U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Matt Hecht

Images of a line of soldiers weighed down by their rucksacks marching toward the Capitol. Armed soldiers lying on the floor of the visitor center as the Statue of Freedom hovers over them. Silhouettes of armored helmets in front of the outer rotunda.

As a photographer for the public affairs unit of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, Master Sgt. Matt Hecht has been documenting a most unusual activation: the arrival of armed troops to ensure a peaceful transition of power of the American government. “These past few days have been insane,” Matt Hecht wrote on his Instagram account where he has documented the arrival of armed soldiers in the Capitol area where a riot broke out last week as a mob broke into the building.

“I got pretty emotional when a thousand things came together, and I got to cover my home units securing the Capitol en masse at sunset,” he wrote. “I also got to see the troops bivouac inside the Capitol — as they did during the Civil War and other historical events.”

As a member of the Air Force National Guard, Mr. Hecht deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan on missions that he recalled as being somewhat similar to what troops are doing now in Washington, D.C. — directing traffic, securing the perimeter of a fenced-off area and supporting local law enforcement.

“It’s obviously different being on home soil, but we’re here for those same reasons — to protect people and property,” said Mr. Hecht, a 43-year-old from New Jersey who has served in the military nearly 20 years. For the past year, Mr. Hecht has documented soldiers involved in domestic activities, starting with assisting at Covid-19 testing sites and long-term care facilities, helping out as poll workers and offering security during civil disturbances in Washington, D.C.

“This year in every aspect has been unlike everything we’ve ever seen before,” he said. “A lot got asked from the Guard last year. These are people taking time away from their families and jobs, and they’re just people like everybody else in the community. They’re people’s neighbors.”

The Capitol Police offered a tour of the building for troops when they arrived last week, pointing out scars from the Jan. 6 riot, leading them through the National Statuary Hall and offering them doughnuts at the cafeteria. “There were hundreds of doughnuts,” he said. Mr. Hecht remembers touring the Capitol as a student and said he and other soldiers marveled at the gravity of the historic moment this week brings.

It hit him when he stood on the red carpet, covered in plastic to keep it clean, where President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will stand Wednesday, and where presidents before have stood before taking the oath of office. “It’s been unbelievable experience to be part of history,” he said.

A mob climb the walls of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. — Jason Andrew for The New York Times

The ragged camps of far-right groups and white nationalists emboldened under President Trump have long nursed an overlapping list of hatreds and goals: Overthrowing the government. Igniting a second Civil War. Banishing racial minorities, immigrants and Jews. Or simply sowing chaos in the streets.

But now they have been galvanized by the outgoing president’s false claims that the election was stolen from him — and by the violent attack on the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6 that hundreds of them led in his name.

“The politicians who have lied, betrayed and sold out the American people for decades were forced to cower in fear and scatter like rats,” one group, known for pushing the worst anti-Semitic tropes, commented on Twitter the day after the attack.

The Capitol riots served as a propaganda coup for the far right, and those who track hate groups say the attack is likely to join an extremist lexicon with Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Bundy occupation of an Oregon wildlife preserve in fueling recruitment and violence for years to come.

Even as dozens of rioters have been arrested, chat rooms and messaging apps where the far right congregates are filled with celebrations and plans. An ideological jumble of hate groups and far-right agitators — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, the Boogaloo movement and neo-Nazis among them — are now discussing how to expand their rosters and whether to take to the streets again this week to oppose the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Some, enraged by their failure to overturn the presidential election, have posted manuals on waging guerrilla warfare and building explosive devices.

“People saw what we can do, they know what’s up, they want in,” boasted one message on a Proud Boys Telegram channel earlier this week.

Inauguration preparations in Washington. — Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a woman they said drove up to an inauguration checkpoint and falsely claimed she was a police officer and a member of the president’s cabinet, the authorities said.

The arrest on Saturday was the latest to raise alarms as the city braced for protests leading up to Inauguration Day on Wednesday.

As many as 25,000 National Guard troops are expected to flood the city this week, and officials have tried to keep some people who participated in the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 from returning to the city.

The arrest on Friday of a Virginia man who had a gun in his truck raised residents’ fears until it was determined that the man appeared to be a security contractor who had illegally brought his personal gun into the District, where it was not registered.

Early on Sunday morning, city police officers also arrested a 22-year-old man from Virginia who they said had a handgun that he was not allowed to carry in the District. The man, identified as Guy Berry, 22, of Gordonsville, Va., was walking about a block away from Columbus Circle and had a Glock that was visible in a holster, three high-capacity magazines and 37 rounds of ammunition, the police said.

The woman arrested on Saturday, who the police identified as Linda MaGovern, 63, of Stratford, Conn., pulled up to a checkpoint near Columbus Circle, about half a mile from the U.S. Capitol, around 8:45 a.m. and showed officers a “military police challenge coin,” an unofficial keepsake widely distributed in military and police communities, according to a report from the city’s Metropolitan Police Department. The woman initially parked her car at the request of officers, but when they asked for her driver’s license, she began to drive away, the police said.

The police were able to stop her a few hundred feet away, in front of Union Station, and she was accused of three crimes: impersonating a police officer, failing to obey a police officer and trying to flee a police officer. The report said she was taken to a hospital for evaluation at a psychiatric unit. Ms. MaGovern could not immediately be reached.

The Metropolitan Police Department frequently makes gun arrests, although they rarely receive so much attention. In the week between Dec. 28 and Jan. 4, for example, the department reported that it had recovered 59 guns and arrested dozens of people on related gun charges.

The State Capitol in Richmond, Va., and the square in front of the building were secured with fencing and boards on Friday. — Brian Palmer for The New York Times

RICHMOND, Va. — Police officers have shut down the square around Virginia’s Capitol and plan to close streets in downtown Richmond on Sunday and Monday in an attempt to discourage the kind of violent mob that surged through the nation’s Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6.

State capitals across the country were on high alert following an F.B.I. bulletin last week warning of planned violence against the government, but concerns were particularly high in Richmond. This weekend is the anniversary of a major gun rights protest that drew about 22,000 people to the state Capitol last year, most of them armed.

The protesters massed last year on Martin Luther King’s birthday, which is a traditional day for Virginia residents to lobby the state legislature at the beginning of its term. The authorities braced for the possibility of violence, fueled by reports that white supremacists, armed militia groups and other extremists planned to attend the rally. But in the end, the police reported no major incidents or violence and announced only one arrest.

City and state authorities have said they are prepared for any disruptions this year, and officials put the city under a state of emergency. “If you come here and act out, Virginia will be ready,” Gov. Ralph Northam said on Thursday.

State legislators are not convening at the Capitol for this year’s General Assembly session because of coronavirus concerns. Instead, the State Senate is meeting at the Science Museum of Virginia, where there is room to spread out their desks, and the House of Delegates has opted for a fully remote session.

The authorities said their primary focus will be monitoring a “rolling caravan” of Second Amendment supporters who plan to drive through the city on Monday, in a pandemic-era version of last year’s rally. Both years’ events were planned by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights organization.

The Capitol building in Harrisburg, Pa., on Sunday. — Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Across the country, officials braced for protests on Sunday at state capitol buildings. In many places, the day proceeded calmly.

Boston: Hundreds of police officers were deployed in a perimeter around the Massachusetts State House, many with the helmets and batons traditionally used for crowd control.

“What’s going on?” shouted a pedestrian. An officer responded, “Maybe a demonstration, maybe not.”

Nezer Porter, who works in property maintenance but also curates a YouTube site documenting current events, was filming the police preparations on his cellphone. “They’re prepared for battle,” he said. “They want all hands on deck for this one.”

The police also closed a network of streets surrounding the State House, which has been the site of numerous protests in recent months.

A police spokeswoman, Officer Shandra Pinto, said the closures were not linked to specific threats, but “just for security reasons,” and that it was not clear how long the streets would remain closed.

Aside from the deployment of police, it could have been any January Sunday on Beacon Hill, with church bells playing hymns and children bundled in snowsuits at the Tadpole Playground. Tourists and dog walkers crisscrossed Boston Common, seemingly unaware of any threat to their security.

— Ellen Barry
Harrisburg, Pa.: Dozens of journalists were looking for someone to photograph or interview on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol at midday. Police on horseback trotted up and down the street, and soldiers stood in small groups chatting. But as for protesting, it was quiet.

Reporters and photographers descended on a man who identified himself only as Eddie and had come to sell $10 anti-Biden shirts out of his van. But Eddie, who lives outside of Philadelphia, left early when he saw no market for his goods.

They flocked by the dozens around a counterprotester who had set up a complicated prop in which he appeared to be pulling a Trump statue off a pedestal. This was a counter without a protest until Alex, a Trump supporter who had been at the Capitol earlier, returned with a bullhorn to rail for a few minutes at the biases of the media.

— Campbell Robertson

Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Santa Fe: The number of New Mexico State Police officers stationed around the state Capitol in Santa Fe on Sunday morning dwarfed the smattering of pedestrians and motorists downtown.

In addition to the heavy police presence, authorities removed postal collection boxes from adjacent areas and placed fencing and concrete barriers around the New Mexico State Capitol. The Albuquerque F.B.I. division also set up a command post to monitor emerging threats and share intelligence.

“While we will protect and defend the peaceful exercise of free speech, we will not tolerate violence, wanton disregard for the law, or incitement to criminal activity,” said Fred Federici, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico.

— Simon Romero
Tallahassee, Fla.: Two men arrived at the Capitol on Sunday with messages, though not the sort most here were expecting.

Decaris Hunter, 34, drove his white Camry more than an hour from Panama City with a sign saying “Spread the Love.” He wondered if he would run into the armed protesters, but he ended up with a prime spot to himself in front of Monroe Street.

“I wanted to be the positive influence,” he said.

Meanwhile, 19-year-old Gregory Gandy held a sign that said, “You have been brainwashed by a fascist.” Mr. Gandy, a college student, said the sign was directed at “anyone who still thinks Donald Trump should be president.”

— Eric Adelson
Atlanta: At Georgia’s gold-domed Capitol, the biggest crowd consisted of journalists. The building itself was well-fortified with military personnel in fatigues and helmets and a large contingent of Capitol Police in broad-brimmed hats.

A little after 2 p.m., two men arrived. One was dressed in military fatigues and had a rifle slung over his shoulder. The other wore jeans and had a shotgun on his back. They approached a metal barricade at the bottom of a set of Capitol steps. Above them were roughly a dozen members of the military who stood next to their armored vehicles. A staring contest ensued. The young men stood by the barricade, looking up the steps, weapons on their backs. The military seemed to exude both vigilance and nonchalance. Photographers snapped photos. It was eerily quiet.

The two men, who wore masks and did not give their names, said they had thought more allies might show up. The weapons, they said, were necessary because they did not trust the authorities — self protection, they said, in case someone in power were to shoot first.

— Richard Fausset
Sacramento: Chain link fence and portable metal barriers surrounded the Capitol building on Sunday, and armed National Guard troops were posted on street corners outside the state library and the office of the Secretary of State. Police choppers circled overhead.

Residents of the downtown loft district stopped to gawk and take photos, and joggers and dog-walkers strolled the downtown sidewalks in the sunshine past pre-emptively boarded-up buildings.

“Can you believe this is happening in America?” someone on a Bird scooter muttered from behind his face mask. The man gave his name only as “Michael,” adding that “this is the start of the police state.”

— Shawn Hubler

Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Reporters in several other state capitals observed little or no protest activity.

In Jefferson City, Mo., the police presence was modest. Dakota Mawby walked the Capitol grounds with a friend for more than an hour, curious whether anything would develop. “We heard rumors floating around that there might be protests,” Mr. Mawby said. “We weren’t planning on joining any, we were just curious.”

In Olympia, Wash., dozens of National Guard members, many wearing helmets, stood behind a temporary fence and caution tape. Streets leading to the Capitol grounds were blocked by concrete barriers and signs that said, “Road Closed.”

Casey McClure, who had driven almost an hour south from Kent, Wash., with his family to see the Capitol building for the first time, was surprised when he saw the fencing and National Guard troops.

“We were hoping to be able to see it because there’s marble and stuff inside, and then we saw this and we’re like, ‘Oh wait, that happened the other day. I guess we can’t go in,’” he said.

— Jacob LaGesse and Hallie Golden

A small group of armed protesters, including “Nobody,” at the far left, outside the statehouse in Concord, N.H., on Sunday. — Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CONCORD, N.H. — A handful of demonstrators milled around outside the gold-domed statehouse near a statue of Daniel Webster Sunday afternoon, as state police strolled in pairs to keep watch.

A maskless man who said he had legally changed his name to “Nobody” drank from a half-gallon of orange juice and smoked a cigarette as he cheerfully listed his concerns about the possibility of a mandatory coronavirus vaccine. (“Nobody” has run for governor and for mayor of Keene, N.H., with slogans like “Nobody tells the truth.”) A friend, Ian Freeman, a Libertarian talk radio host who had also changed his name for the political resonance, speculated that the sparse attendance was because of rumors that the event was a “government honey pot” designed to entrap activists.

By 1 p.m., five masked men decked out in camouflage and tactical gear and carrying AR-15s had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the statehouse lawn for what they said was a demonstration planned weeks before Jan. 6, to express concerns about “government overreach” on a variety of fronts. They identified themselves as members of the far-right Boogaloo movement, and carried flags with the movement’s signature Hawaiian prints and igloo icons.

One man wore a patch reading “Weapons are part of my religion,” which he identified as a line from “The Mandalorian” that amused him. Another man handed out fliers, though he said he had only a few because his printer was having issues.

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