Over the past eight years, I’ve lost count how many times during I’ve tasted tear gas, dodged rubber bullets or been in the way of bricks and bottles being thrown.
At one point I even had the laser red dot of a police marksmen’s gun centred on my chest.
Between Minneapolis, Ferguson, Baltimore, I’ve stood on the frontline with both sides of the divide whether it be behind police lines or with warring protestors.
But on Wednesday, stood among a vastly greater crowd at the Capitol building than those three city riots could collectively muster, never have I witnessed such a pathetic display of policing by so many.
The senior chiefs responsible should hang their heads in shame as well as their badges on the door on their way out.
The images of their officers humiliated policing around the world - cops posing for selfies with rioters, opening gates to invite them in and standing idly by as trouble flared was shameful.
Last summer, the same force met peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas outside the White House to clear the way for Donald Trump’s photo-op with military leaders and a Bible at a nearby church.
On Wednesday, they instead allowed his baying mob of extremists to storm into a locked-down Capitol unopposed.
In a city already on high alert knowing thousands embolden by their leader were expected, in a building with its own 2,000-officer police department, rioters still managed to force their way into the depths of American democracy.
And with what?
Unlike the riots I have covered these people didn’t carry weapons with intent to maim, they held sticks and shields that any rookie cop should have no issue in taking down.
The cowardice and failure the world saw should rightly lead to widespread sackings and reform of the Capitol Police.
It’s showed itself to be a den of cowardice, incompetence and sedition which now seems soaked in systematic racism.
Their motto is “A Tradition of Service and Protection”, the question is to and of whom?
