Rioters swarmed the US Capitol on Wednesday. (Getty Images)
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Wayne Golding, a member of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council in Florida; Damion Gordon, Assistant Lecturer of Public Policy at the University of the West Indies; Opposition spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Lisa Hanna
The police have been accused of treating the Capitol rioters more favourably to Black Lives Matters protesters last summer during demonstrations against racial injustice.
Wayne Golding, a member of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council in Florida, says people are also worried about the coming days.
"Yesterday, you were seeing images of even, people would say law enforcement who actually facilitated some of these folks. Not to paint everybody with a broad brush, but the reality of the situation is that, no matter what the public image is, the reality on the ground is you had to be very conscious yesterday as somebody living in America, as a minority, to say this can start happening in the city that I live because we're talking about 70 million people who feel that way about the election," he pointed out.
He said the rioters should be made to pay a price.
More outbreaks to come
Damion Gordon, Assistant Lecturer of Public Policy at the University of the West Indies, said outbreaks of violence will continue in the US at least for the first term of Joe Biden's presidency.
"America has always had extremism on the left and also on the right, but most of those extreme groups operated on the periphery, at the fringes of the American society. Certainly over the last four year, conspiracy theorist, fringe movements, extremists have been brought into the mainstream of American politics and now constitute the base of the Republican party. So what we saw yesterday, it will be the face of the Republican arty over the next four or five years," he warned.
US democracy threatened
Opposition spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Lisa Hanna says the chaotic scenes at the Capitol building in Washington D.C may have threatened the US's ability to assert itself as a strong democratic country.
Ms Hanna said the unprecedented assault on Congress was disturbing.
"We would want to see normalcy. I think what happened yesterday by the Congress ratifying President-elect Biden's vote and win is a step in good faith towards the restoration of normalcy in the eyes of the rest of the world, and we relly anticipate and we look forward to a peaceful transition. We really don't want to see our neighbour, our friend, get to this point," she said Thursday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106.
On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said she noted with deep concern the developments in Washington D.C.
Mrs Johnson Smith highlighted the need for a prompt return to normalcy.
CARICOM
A reaction has also come from CARICOM to Wednesday's protest in Washington D.C.
CARICOM chairman Dr. Keith Rowley said he is deeply saddened and concerned at the unprecedented scenes that unfolded at the Capitol Building.
Dr. Rowley, who is also Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said the storming of the US Congress was a gross affront to democracy and the rule of law in a country which has been viewed as a leading light of representative governance.
He said CARICOM looks forward to the restoration of order and the continuation of the process of transfer of power in a peaceful manner.
Arrests
The first round of supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol are due in court to face charges on Thursday, as police step up their search for perpetrators of violence.
In a late night news conference on Wednesday, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee said 47 of the arrests to date were related to violations of the 6:00 p.m. curfew, with 26 of those involving people arrested on U.S. Capitol grounds.
Several others were arrested on charges related to carrying unlicensed or prohibited firearms.
It was not immediately clear how many people would be arraigned on Thursday.
Mr. Contee told reporters that two pipe bombs were recovered from the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees, as well as a cooler from a vehicle on U.S. Capitol grounds that contained Molotov cocktails.
A total of four people died during the chaos at the Capitol, including one woman who was shot by a Capitol Police officer.
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