Protests Today: Live Tracker from Capitol and Across the Country – The New York Times

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

RICHMOND, Va. Police officers have shut down the square around Virginias 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 nations 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 also 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 Kings 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 years 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 years rally. Both years events were planned by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights organization.

WASHINGTON Military vehicles and police barricades lined the streets of the nations capital and surrounded statehouses across the country on Sunday, as officials braced for pro-Trump protests amid concerns about potential violence or domestic terrorism.

Striving to head off any repeat of the riot less than two weeks ago, when President Trumps supporters breached the Capitol in Washington, D.C., state officials have deployed National Guard troops, shut down statehouse grounds and delayed legislative sessions in response to F.B.I. notices that white supremacists and right-wing extremists could target capital cities across the country.

People posting on right-wing websites and social media have called for supporters to march on Washington and all 50 state Capitols on Sunday, with plans in Washington for a march to end at the White House. In recent days, however, as officials have beefed up precautions, some posters sought to discourage people from turning out, making it unclear what to expect.

In Washington, concerns mounted over the weekend ahead of the presidential inauguration on Wednesday. A militarized green zone grew downtown, as streets were blocked by concrete barricades and military vehicles, and police sirens blared frequently on Saturday. Pentagon officials said that 9,500 National Guard members from 46 states and 3 territories had arrived in Washington by Saturday, and that as many as 25,000 are expected 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.

State capitals were quiet on Saturday, but many streets around Capitol buildings were heavily policed and militarized, and looked similar to those in downtown Washington Across the country, at least 19 states activated National Guard units.

In Virginia, site of a rally a year ago on Martin Luther Kings Birthday that drew thousands of gun-rights protesters to Richmond and prompted concerns about violent extremism, Gov. Ralph Northam issued a warning: If youre planning to come here or up to Washington with ill intent in your heart, you need to turn around right now and go home.

Potentially violent protests are expected on Sunday and Wednesday in Michigan, where armed and angry demonstrators crowded into the State Capitol in April to protest coronavirus lockdown orders Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has activated the Michigan National Guard, and a six-foot fence has been erected around the Statehouse in Lansing, where windows of state office buildings have been boarded up.

The state Legislature has canceled several sessions scheduled for this week after credible threats were received by Michigan State Police.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California authorized the deployment of 1,000 National Guard troops and had the State Capitol grounds in Sacramento surrounded with a chain-link fence.

There will be no tolerance for violence, Mr. Newsom said last week, referring to the attack on the nations Capitol. California will take every necessary measure to protect public safely and our democratic principles, and to ensure that those disgraceful actions are not repeated here.

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 presidents false claims that the election was stolen from him and by the violent attack on the nations 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 whats up, they want in, boasted one message on a Proud Boys Telegram channel earlier this week.

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Protests Today: Live Tracker from Capitol and Across the Country - The New York Times