The outgoing Chief of Police in the Capitol, Steven Sund, accused the security officers of the House and the Senate of obstructing several attempts before and during the riots in the Capitol to call in the National Guard.
Sound told The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday night – his first since the events at the Capitol on Wednesday – that he asked House and Senate security officials in the days before Congress would choose the country, the Electoral College voted to allow him to request assistance from the DC National Guard should troops be needed before the pro-President Trump
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But the Capitol police chief, who officially replaced as head Friday after his resignation, told the newspaper that officials had denied the request.
Sund reports that House Sergeant Paul Irving has said he is not comfortable with the ‘optics’ of declaring an emergency before the protests, and Senate Sergeant Michael Stenger informally recommends Sund to ask the guard to be ready for last Wednesday.
“We knew it would be bigger,” Sund told the Post. “We looked at the intelligence. We knew we would have a large crowd, which would have the potential for violent quarrels. I had nothing to suggest that a large crowd would grab the Capitol. ‘
The outgoing chief said his request before the riots was ultimately the first of six times that his calls for help would be denied or postponed. When the trump mob reached the Capitol at about 12:40 p.m., it took about 15 minutes to cross the west side, he said.
“If we had the national guard, we could have kept them longer until more officers from our partnerships could show up,” he said.
Sund said around 2:26 p.m., he asked the Pentagon to back up during a conference call. But a top army official said he could not recommend the army minister Ryan McCarthyRyan McCarthyOvernight Defense: Pentagon Chief Condemns Capitol Riots | House President calls for Trump to be removed Fence erected around Capitol Generations woman, a Democratic senator from the Air Force vet, worries about the inauguration of the DC guard to erect the 7-foot-tall ‘non-scalable fence’ around violent riots MORE may approve the deployment and say, “I do not like the visual image of the National Guard having a police line with the Capitol in the background,” the report reported, referring to participants in the call.
The first national guard personnel finally arrived at 17:40 after four of the now five deaths had already taken place amid the riots.
The Post could not reach Irving for comment, and Stenger declined to comment and told a reporter, “I really do not want to talk about it.” Both officials resigned after the riots amid pressure from lawmakers.
Pentagon officials pointed out that police in the Capitol had not asked the DC National Guard before the protest or asked for an unforeseen plan for the Guard.
“We rely on the Capitol police and federal law enforcement to give an assessment of the situation,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Poste said last week, according to the Post. “And based on the assessment they had, they believed they had adequate staff and did not make a request.”
But Sund warns that “if they do not restore physical security, it will happen again”, possibly with the president-elect Joe Biden
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