system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
I remember an officer saying the day after that they wanted to avoid using deadly force if at all possible because they'd been seizing guns the whole day and believed the crowd was much better armed than they were.  You think the crowd would have ran off had the police started shooting, but it's also entirely possible the cops outside the building would have been slaughtered by an outraged mob on live tv.
gpt
As bad as it was that rioters got into the Capitol, it would have been unspeakably bad if the cops had started shooting for precisely this reason. Even if the police ended up “winning” the firefight, would losing dozens of officers and having the bloody bodies of hundreds of rioters strewn across our Capitol steps have been worth holding their ground?

Absolutely not. Sometimes you have to make shitty decisions to limit casualties.