WASHINGTON (AP) – Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump riot at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the American Capitol police if it needed the manpower of the National Guard. And when the mob descended on the building On Wednesday, Justice Department leaders presented the FBI agents. Police dismissed them both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.
Despite many warnings about a possible uprising and enough resources and time to prepare, the Capitol police only planned for a free speech demonstration.
Officials still intended to elicit the violent response of lawmakers to protests near the White House last June, and also intended to prevent the federal government from deploying active service or national troops against Americans.
The result is that the U.S. Capitol was raided on Wednesday and officers in a law enforcement agency with a large operating budget and experience in high-security events protecting lawmakers were overwhelmed for the world. Four protesters were killed, including one shot inside the building. A Capitol police officer was killed Thursday after being injured in Wednesday’s protest.
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The riots and loss of control have raised serious questions about security at the Capitol for future events. The actions of the day also raise concerns about the treatment of predominantly white Trump supporters, who may roam the building for hours, while black and brown protesters who protested last year over police brutality face more powerful and aggressive policing. has.
“It was a failure of the imagination, a failure of leadership,” said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, whose department responded to several major protests last year following the death of George Floyd. “The Capitol police need to do better and I do not see how we can get around that.”
Acevedo said he attended rallies at the Capitol site to honor slain police officers with higher fences and a stronger presence than he saw on video Wednesday.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said as the riots unfolded, it became clear that Capitol police had been raided. But he said no contingency planning had been done in advance for what the forces could do in case of a problem at the Capitol, because the help of the Department of Defense was turned down. “They have to ask us, the request has to come to us,” McCarthy said.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was forced to resign under pressure from Schumer, Pelosi and other congressional leaders. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the resignation of Senate Coat of Arms member Michael Stenger and received immediate effect. Paul Irving, the longtime sergeant at Arms of the House, also resigned.
“There was a failure of leadership above,” said Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House.
The US Capitol has been closed to the public since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 360,000 people in the US. But the building is normally open to the public and lawmakers are proud of their availability to their constituents.
It is not clear how many officers were on duty Wednesday, but the complex is protected by a total of 2,300 officers for 16 acres of land that protects the 435 representatives of the House, 100 U.S. senators and their staff. By comparison, the city of Minneapolis has about 840 uniformed officers who police a population of 425,000 in a 6,000-acre area.
There were weeks of signs that violence could strike on January 6, when Congress convened a joint sitting to count the votes of the Electoral College, which would confirm that Democrat Joe Biden had won the presidential election.
On far-right message boards and in pro-Trump circles, plans are being devised.
The leader of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys was arrested when he came to the capital of the country this week on a gun charge for wearing blank magazines with their logo. He admitted to police that he had made statements about riots in Washington, local officials said.
Both Acevedo and Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner who led the department during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, said they did not blame the responses of clearly overlapping front officers, but the planning and leadership before the riot.
‘Was there a structural sense that it’s good, it’s a bunch of conservatives; they are not going to do something like that? Quite possible, ”Davis said. ‘This is where the racial component comes into play in my mind. Was there a lack of urgency or a feeling that this could never happen to this crowd? Is it possible? Absolutely. ”
Trump and his allies were perhaps the biggest megaphones, encouraging protesters to take power and support his false claim that the election was stolen from him. He covered them during a rally shortly before they marched to the Capitol and became riotous. His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor who was known for his tough stance on crime, called for him to “fight.”
McCarthy said the intelligence estimates of the law enforcement of the potential crowd in the run-up to the protests were “all over the board,” from a low of 2,000 to as many as 80,000.
The Capitol police therefore did not set up any hard perimeter around the Capitol. Officials were focused on one side where lawmakers entered to vote to confirm Biden’s victory.
Barriers were erected in the square in front of the building, but police withdrew from the line and a crowd of people broke through. Legislators, initially unaware of the security breach, continued their debate. Soon they curled up under chairs. Eventually, they were escorted out of the House and Senate. Journalists were left alone in the rooms for hours while the mob tried to break into blocked rooms.
Sund, the chief of police in the Capitol, said he expected an exhibition of “First Amendment activities” that turned into a “violent attack”. But Gus Papathanasiou, head of the Capitol Police Union, said the failure of the planning left officers simply without backup or equipment against the rioting crowd.
“We were fortunate that more of those who violated the Capitol did not have firearms or explosives and did not have a malicious intent,” Papathanasiou said in a statement. “Tragically as the deaths due to the attack are, we are happy that the death toll was not higher.”
The Department of Justice, FBI and other agencies began monitoring weeks, hotels, flights and social media and were expecting large crowds. Mayor Muriel Bowser has been warning of impending violence for weeks, and businesses have closed in anticipation. According to Kenneth Rapuano, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security, she turned down Pentagon assistance from the Pentagon on Dec. 31, but Capitol police turned down the Jan. 3 Department of Defense offer.
“We asked more than once and the last return we got on Sunday 3 was that they would not ask DOD for help,” he said.
According to the two people who know the case, the Department of Justice’s support for FBI is supported because the protesters became violent. They were not authorized to discuss the matter in public and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Then it was too late.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police Station came down. Agents from almost every agency of the Department of Justice, including the FBI, were called in. So does the Secret Service and the Federal Protection Service. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent two tactical teams. Police from as far away as New Jersey showed up to help.
It took four hours to oust the protesters from the Capitol complex. By that time, they were wandering around the halls of Congress, posing for pictures in holy rooms, breaking through doors, destroying property, and taking pictures of themselves to do so. Only 13 were arrested at the time; scores were later arrested.
In the aftermath, a 7-foot fence will go up around the Capitol site for at least 30 days. Capitol police will review the massacre, as well as their planning and policies. Lawmakers plan to investigate how authorities handled the riot.
Acting U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, said the failure to arrest more people makes their jobs more difficult.
‘Look, we now have to place orders on the site, collect video footage to try to identify people and then charge and then carry out their arrest. So that made things challenging, but I can not answer why the people did not leave the building by the Capitol police. ‘
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Associated Press authors Ben Fox, Mary Clare Jalonick, Andrew Taylor and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.