With the police at the head, with guns drawn, the group stumbled through the chaos, Mr. Crow said. Some police officers rushed to block other doors to block the crowd. Others pinned some rioters to the ground to get the lawmakers to pass.
Due to efforts to limit the number of people in the room, several lawmakers and assistants hid in their offices, scattered throughout the complex. Some were not contacted by the police, even though they burst into them.
The attending physician’s office said Sunday many of the members of the home stayed in one safe place, where they may have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus.
Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, pushed a handful of Republicans to wear masks, in vain. Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, and Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, provided updates to the House from time to time as lawmakers called their families and investigated their staff members.
On the Senate side of the Capitol, the rioters came dangerously close to the legislators. As they approached, a quick-thinking Capitol police officer pushed one of them away, then chased him back and the crowd chased him. According to the officer’s manner, the mob helped a few feet from an entrance to the Senate. a video taken by Igor Bobic, a HuffPost reporter.
According to a person in the room, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, shouted at Sergeant Michael C. Stenger in a safe, unknown place. Mr. Stenger was grinding around, the person said, instilling no confidence that he was in control of the situation. He has since resigned, as has Chief Sund. Across the Capitol, urgent voices creaked over police radios detailing the unfolding siege.
“There was definitely a higher sense of urgency” over police radio traffic as rioters crossed the east side of the Capitol, said Ashan M. Benedict, head of the Washington Field Office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives, said was working with Capitol police in the nearby Republican Party headquarters, where a pipe bomb was found.