I like to be in the rooms of the House or the Senate on big days. There’s just something in the room where this happens. This is more than just a news report. It is history and a privilege to tell people about it.
Even in the midst of a pandemic – I have an 18-month-old son – I jumped at the chance to attend the election college vote count. It’s usually a ceremonial moment, a kind of epilogue to the long campaign. But this time was different. Objections would be lodged by President Trump’s allies to stop an election that the president lost. It promises to be dramatic, and it will be the election of Pres. Joe Biden’s victory confirmed.
But my husband was worried. Trump encouraged protests, and he feared it could become violent.
After I put the baby to bed Tuesday night, he gently asked me to be careful. “Wear street clothes that you can blend in with the crowd,” he told me. “Jeans and a T-shirt.”
I arrived around 11:15 on Wednesday, almost two hours before things would start. I did not want to miss anything and wanted to make sure I had time to get through security. I sit down on my seat in the press gallery, the seats above the speaker’s scene, and begin to watch the joint sitting of Congress.
Senators and members of the House did not get very far. They count the votes in the alphabetical order of states. First came Alabama, then Alaska. When they reached Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) Objected to the recording of the state’s 11 election votes. Each house retired into its room to debate their objections.
I stayed in the House Gallery. Only half a dozen lawmakers had finished speaking when I heard that there could be problems. I was taking notes on my laptop when my phone buzzed at 13:41. It was a text message from a House staff member who sent me a warning from the Capitol police.
“The Cannon Building is carrying out internal resettlement due to police activities,” the warning said. ‘All other staff must remain in their building until further guidance is received from USCP. If you are outside a building on Capitol Hill, follow the directions of law enforcement …. Further information will be provided as soon as it is available. ”
I followed the events on Twitter and was aware that protesters were outside the Capitol. The warning scared me, but this is the Capitol, and threats are common.
Thirty minutes later I went up the stairs and entered the press offices to see if I could learn more. The office’s emergency radio crackled live. Then came a woman’s voice, one that seemed panicked: ‘Due to an external security threat on the Western Front of the US Capitol Building, no entry or exit is currently allowed. You can move through the building (s), but stay away from windows and doors outside. If you are outdoors, seek cover. ”
I knew what I had to do. I walk down the stairs to my laptop. It was 2:15 pm After typing an update for my editors, I looked across the railing at the room and noticed that House President Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the second in the presidency row, was gone . It was clear that her security details had inspired her to safety.
I hear a commotion behind me and turn around and see a dozen reporters from press offices leading the gallery. Then the police locked and locked the doors. Police interrupted the proceedings to announce that tear gas had been deployed in the roundabout.
A staff member gave me an evacuation cabinet, a cumbersome plastic bag that filters out tear gas and chemicals. She told me to pass it and others in line until everyone had one. Reporters were not the only ones in the gallery. Staff members watched the proceedings. More than a dozen lawmakers have also taken seats in the public galleries overlooking the house floor. Now we are locked in the room together.
On the floor, Representative Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), A former combat navy, held up his flight cap and explained to other members how it should be used. There were about 150 lawmakers down there, and Gallego shouted to get attention.
“Open the first package!” he shouted.
“Then open the second one!”
“The hood is then inflated over your head!”
A few minutes later, police escorted Gallego and other lawmakers through a side door out of the room. Some lawmakers are helping ordinary officials wrestle with a massive bookshelf and move it in front of the front doors of the chamber, the same one the president is addressing for the state of the nation address.
Knock on the door start. The officers draw their guns.
One looks up and sees the reporters and about two dozen representatives and staff scrambling over the railings in the upper gallery to get to the doors.
“Bend on the floor!” he shouted. “Get as low as you can!”
I slipped behind a row of chairs and looked up as a female representative began to pray. Another member talks loudly into his cell phone and offers a play-by-play. Several legislators cried.
I heard the main door in the room crack. I peeked into the room when Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) Try reasoning with those trying to push their way inside.
A loud crack split the air. It sounded like a gunshot. And then it became quiet.
Officers shouted at lawmakers in the gallery to leave, but no one at the person present had the key to the door. Lawmakers and police officers argued over opening the door and running for it. The police wanted legislators to draw a line for it.
Members do not agree. “Do not open that door!” shouted a representative while an officer fiddled with the door in the hallway. “We do not know who is behind it!”
I crawled to the spot where rep Norma Torres (D-Pomona) was kneeling. She hugged me and questioned my baby, and I told her he was fine.
She took my photo with her phone and posted it on Twitter and tagged @latimes to warn my colleagues that I was right.
“Can I do the hardest part of my job and ask you what you think now?” I asked.
It took her a moment to put her thoughts together. “It’s awful that it’s America, it’s the United States of America and that’s what we have to go through, because Trump has called for homemade terrorists to come to the Capitol and invalidate people’s voices,” she said.
Moments later, Capitol police opened the gallery’s doors. They told us to go out quickly. They took us to a safe place. As we walked toward the stairs on the third floor, I saw several police officers standing over a half-dozen rioters lying face down on the marble, hands behind their heads.
It suddenly hit me – I realized I had not yet told my husband that I was safe.
‘I’m ok. Be evacuated, ‘I send him at 14:57 an SMS, to overwhelm to get into the details.
“Take a deep breath,” he replied. ‘Ok. Keep me updated. Love you.”
The police told us to follow them. We walked a few minutes with a walk down aisle to corridors and a winding staircase. I worked in the Capitol for eight years and I can not tell you the path we followed. As lawmakers, reporters, and staff members streamed forward, I slowed down so I could talk to a visibly shaken representative Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). He was alive. I pull out my phone and pick up record. He takes a second to find his words.
“It should not happen in the United States,” he said, his eyes watering with tears.
We reached a safe room. That’s all I can say about it right now. It was big and filled with leather chairs and walnut tables, and you saw it on TV. It was already filled with lawmakers, staff members and other journalists. While members tapped on their phones and were alerted by security officials to the riots, staff handed out goldfish biscuits, fruit snacks and bottles of water.
A member led a prayer. Another, a former ER doctor, reminded me to stay hydrated. A group of Democrats grumble about Republicans not wearing masks.
I went looking for lawmakers in California and started interviewing them. After each one, I uploaded the audio to my colleagues in my office to add stories to our website.
A member pleaded with colleagues not to interview reporters. They were worried that we would accidentally betray our location.
Kimbriell Kelly, my boss, sent me a message asking for a first person video of what it was like in the room. I said I can not. Lawmakers were ‘in a panic that I could accidentally give away their place’, I told her. “Will I do it in writing if it’s good?”
That detail ‘just hit me in the gut’, she wrote back.
An hour has passed. My husband sends me a picture of my baby smiling. It tore me apart.
Just after 5:30 p.m., the arms sergeant, the highest security officer of the House, announced that the Capitol was secure, but urged members to remain in their place. He wanted a little more time to guarantee their safety. Ninety minutes later, Pelosi arrives to address the remaining members (some have returned to their offices). The speaker criticized the “crowd desecrating the halls of the Capitol of the United States” and stated that the House and Senate would return immediately to complete their work. The speaker said she did not want the rioters to think they had won.
Forty-five minutes later, more than four hours after I was locked up, I was allowed to leave. There was only one place I could go.
I’m back in the gallery – to chronicle history.