Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said that efforts to deploy the National Guard during last Wednesday’s riots were hampered by the Pentagon and House and Senate security officials, according to an interview with the Washington Post published on Sunday.
Why it matters: Sund, who resigned due to the violence, told WashPost that his requests for help from the Guard were “rejected or delayed” six times in total – including before the Capitol protest and the outbreak of violence.
- Sund said he is concerned that if officials “do not organize their actions with physical security, it will happen again” – possibly in the possession of President-elect Joe Biden, on January 20.
Between the lines: Sund said weapons sergeant Paul Irving expressed discomfort with the “optics” of declaring an emergency before the protests.
- Michael Stenger, the then Senate Arms Sergeant, advised Sund to informally ask the Guard to stand by if required by the Capitol Police, according to Sund.
- Both Irving and Stenger resigned.
- “We knew it would be bigger,” Sund told the Post. “We looked at the intelligence. We knew that we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent strife. I had nothing to indicate that we would have a large crowd taking Capitol.”
Zoom In: When the crowd broke into the main building at 2:26 pm, Sund said he had requested reinforcements in a Pentagon conference call to “put his boots on the floor”.
- But Sund and others on the call said a senior Army officer told them that he could not recommend the request to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy as “I don’t like the image of the National Guard standing on a police line with the Capitol in the background.”
- The pro-Trump crowd breached the west side perimeter in 15 minutes.
- “If we had the National Guard, we could keep them away for longer until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,” noted Sund.
- National Guard personnel finally arrived at the Capitol at 5:40 pm, after four people died in the violence.
The other side: The Pentagon and representatives of the House and Senate arms sergeants did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
- But Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said last week that, based on an assessment by the Capitol Police and the federal police, “they believed they had enough staff and didn’t place an order”.
- Stenger declined to comment on WashPost and Irving could not be reached via the media.
The big picture: Sund offered his resignation last Thursday, starting January 16. Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman was appointed acting chief of the Capitol Police on Sunday.
- Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Said last Thursday that he “requested and received” Stenger’s resignation, who was replaced by deputy weapons sergeant Jennifer Hemingway as an acting weapons sergeant. .
- Several lawmakers promised to investigate the police’s response to the violence.