Two Jan. 6 rioters played the inclusion card over a memorial to assaulted officers

Over the last decade, words like “inclusion” have become weaponized. It ought to mean making sure that people from various backgrounds — reflecting diversity, which has also become divisive — feel comfortable and welcome in a group setting, like an office, a public service, a school, etc.

I was struck recently while reading how two people who had been convicted over the Jan. 6 riot in Washington in 2021 were making an unusual bid for a judge’s favour.

Their argument: the memorial was not “inclusive” because … it was not about them.

The memorial is to police and other law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol from rioters and insurgents.

Brian Mock and Cindy Lou Young say the memorial should recognize the other side: the rioters. Mock was imprisoned for attacking police officers in four separate incidents, while Young was convicted for misdemeanours. U.S. President Donald Trump later pardoned both of them.

In late March, judge Dabney Friedrich dismissed an appeal both made for standing in a lawsuit brought by two officers who felt that the efforts to put the memorial in a prominent place were languishing. (They’re right, and more on that shortly.)

A submission from Young makes a remarkable gambit, using language usually mocked by MAGA: “Any memorialization of the events of January 6, 2021, at the United States Capitol is equitable, inclusive, and accurately reflects the experiences of all individuals impacted by that day.”

Friedrich, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in his first term, saw no merit in their case and basically tossed it. You can read her decision here.

Lawyers for the police trying to move the memorial forward had earlier described the “inclusion” notion as a sideshow.

Anyone visiting Washington, though, will have to seek it out. It’s hanging quietly now near one of the entrances in the Capitol, and critics feel that it should have a more prominent location.

Here’s how the Washington Post covered its installation in the wee hours of a March day (gift link used to get you over a paywall):

In the predawn hours Saturday, around 4 a.m., staff with the Architect of the Capitol bolted the bronze plaque to a granite wall near an entrance on the west front, close to where the armed crowd had amassed and scaled scaffolding set up for the inauguration. They wheeled the plaque, stored in plywood, across the stone basement floor and guided it through the double doors. They raised the tribute with a jack table and began fixing it in place, the clang of their tools ringing out through otherwise empty hallways.

There was no announcement, no ceremony, no newscameras — just two employees on their routine overnight shift working while most of Washington slept. The quiet installation, which Congress ordered completed by mid-March 2023, marks the latest turn in the contested effort to remember Jan. 6, as Trump continues to reframe the riot as patriotic and the rioters as victims of a weaponized justice system.

Congress passed a law in March 2022 mandating the installation of a memorial plaque within a year. Instead, the plaque sat in the Capitol basement, surrounded by maintenance equipment. It lists the names of almost two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies including the D.C. police, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Capitol Police, the National Guard and the Maryland and Virginia state police.

The name of Brian Mock, one of the rioters making the now-failed court bid, rang a bell. Google filled in the details of why. Mock’s story was well covered in part because his own son was the one who turned him into the FBI.

Since being pardoned by Trump, Mock has been emboldened by opportunity, and is now a political candidate. He’s running for the state senate in Minnesota.

His platform? Justice reform.