The police force responsible for public security in the Brazilian capital did not stop the crowd from advancing on the building, and some were seen in social media images taking selfies and interacting with protesters.
It was only after Lula ordered the federal government to intervene with local security that riot police dispersed the crowd with tear gas and arrested some 1,800 protesters.
Bolsonaro’s ally Ibanés Rocha, the governor of Brasilia, was the first to be blamed for the security lapse. He was suspended from office on Sunday by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who also ordered the arrest of his security chief and police chief.
According to a Reuters witness, the battalion of soldiers assigned to guard the presidential palace did not react until the rioters entered the palace and ransacked the palace.
The four on-duty employees of the Office of the National Security Adviser (GSI) were quickly overwhelmed inside the presidential palace and their office ransacked. They saw protesters kicking in the reinforced door of Lula’s office, but failed to get inside.
A spokesman for the president told Reuters that computers had been taken from the office of the National Security Adviser and hard drives containing classified information were missing. Spokesman Guto Guterres said the Taser gun boxes had been emptied.
Rui Costa, the president’s chief of staff, said the government now faced the challenge of “disinfecting” the security forces and holding those responsible accountable.
Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilla said, “We have many institutions that have been corrupted by Bolsonarista hatred by far-right coup plotters.”
Government officials said it was unclear how soldiers or policemen sympathetic to the protesters’ call for a military coup would be identified or removed.
An idea proposed by Lula’s allies, aimed at discouraging the politicization of the security forces, would be to bar military and police officers from running for elected office.