WASHINGTON (AP) – Three days before the pro-President Donald Trump riot on the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the US Capitol Police if it needed labor from the National Guard. And as the crowd descended on the building On Wednesday, Justice Department leaders contacted each other to offer FBI agents. The police refused both times, according to a defense official and two people familiar with the matter.
Despite many warnings of a possible uprising and ample resources and time to prepare, the Capitol Police planned only one demonstration for freedom of expression.
Still resentful of the uproar over the security forces’ violent response to last June’s protests near the White House, officials also intended to avoid any appearance that the federal government was sending National Guard troops against the Americans.
The result is that the US Capitol was invaded on Wednesday and officials at a law enforcement agency with a large operating budget and experience in high security events that protect lawmakers were impressed for the world to see. Four protesters died, including a shot inside the building.
The disturbances and loss of control raised serious questions about security at Capitol for future events. The day’s actions also raise worrying concerns about the treatment of mainly white Trump supporters, who were allowed to roam the building for hours, while the black and brown protesters who spoke out last year about police brutality faced more robust policing and aggressive.
“That was a lack of imagination, a lack of leadership,” said Houston police chief Art Acevedo, whose department responded to several major protests last year after George Floyd’s death. “The Capitol Police must do better and I don’t see how we can get around it.”
Acevedo said he participated in events on Capitol grounds to honor murdered policemen who had higher fences and a stronger security presence than what he saw in the video on Wednesday.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said that while the riots were ongoing, it was clear that the Capitol Police had been invaded. There was no contingency planning done in advance for what the forces could do in the event of a Capitol problem. “They need to ask us, the order must come to us,” said McCarthy.
The day after the riot, the House’s weapons sergeant, head of security for the House of Representatives, resigned and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California, asked for the resignation of the Capitol Police chief.
“There was a leadership gap at the top,” said Pelosi.
Senator Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., the new majority leader, said he would fire the Senate arms sergeant.
The United States Capitol has been closed to the public since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic that killed more than 350,000 people. But normally, the building is open to the public and lawmakers are proud of its availability to its constituents.
It is unclear how many police officers were on duty on Wednesday, but the complex is policed by a total of 2,300 police on 16 acres of land that protect the 435 House representatives, 100 U.S. senators and their staff. In comparison, the city of Minneapolis has about 840 uniformed policemen who police a population of 425,000 people over an area of 6,000 acres.
For weeks, there were signs that violence could strike on January 6, when Congress called a joint session to end the counting of votes from the Electoral College that would confirm Democratic Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
In far-right forums and pro-Trump circles, plans were being made.
The leader of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys was arrested entering the country’s capital this week on charges of carrying weapons for carrying empty high-capacity magazines with his logo. He admitted to police that he made statements about riots in the District of Columbia, local officials said.
Both Acevedo and Ed Davis, a former Boston Police Commissioner who led the department during the 2013 Boston Marathon attack, said they did not blame the clearly outdated frontline officers’ responses, but the planning and leadership before of the riot.
“There was a structural feeling that well, these are a bunch of conservatives, aren’t they going to do anything like that? Very possibly, ”said Davis. “This is where the racial component of this comes into play in my mind. Was there a lack of urgency or the feeling that it could never happen to this crowd? It is possible? Absolutely.”
Trump and his allies were perhaps the biggest megaphones, encouraging protesters to forcibly appear and support their false claim that the election had been stolen from him. He incited them during a demonstration just before they marched to the Capitol and rebelled. His personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor known for his tough stance on crime, called for “trial by combat”.
But the Capitol Police did not establish a rigid perimeter around the Capitol. The officers were concentrated on a side where lawmakers came in to vote to certify Biden’s victory.
Barricades in the square of the building were placed, but the police withdrew from the line and a crowd of people broke out. Lawmakers, at first unaware of the security breach, continued their debate. Soon they were huddled under the chairs. Eventually, they were escorted from the House and the Senate. The journalists were left alone in the rooms for hours while the crowd tried to break into the barricaded rooms.
“The violent attack on the US Capitol was unlike any I have experienced in my 30 years of law enforcement here in Washington, DC,” said Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, explaining that there was a robust plan he had hoped for. that was a display of First Amendment activities. “But make no mistake – these mass disturbances were not First Amendment activities; they were rampant criminal behavior. “
Gus Papathanasiou, head of the Capitol Police union, called for Sund’s replacement, saying the planning failures left the police exposed without support or equipment against the growing crowd.
“We cannot leave our officers and the Capitol community that they protect at the mercy of new attacks in the midst of a leadership vacuum,” he said.
FBI bailiffs and other agencies began monitoring hotels, flights and social media for weeks and were expecting crowds. Mayor Muriel Bowser has warned of impending violence for weeks, and companies have closed in anticipation. She requested help from the Pentagon National Guard on December 31, but Capitol Police declined the Department of Defense’s January 3 offer, according to Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland security.
The Department of Justice’s offer for FBI support while protesters became violent was rejected by Capitol Police, according to two people familiar with the matter. They were not allowed to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was too late.
Metropolitan Police Department officers descended. Agents from almost every Department of Justice agency, including the FBI, were called. As well as the Secret Service and the Federal Protection Service. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent two tactical teams. The police from distant places like New Jersey came to help.
It took four hours to disperse the protesters from the Capitol complex. Until then, they walked the halls of Congress, posed for photos in sacred chambers, broke down doors, destroyed property and took pictures of themselves doing so. Only 13 were arrested at the time, dozens were arrested later.
In the aftermath, a 7-foot fence will be erected around the Capitol grounds for at least 30 days. The Capitol Police will review the carnage, as well as its planning and policies. Lawmakers plan to investigate how the authorities dealt with the disturbances.
District Attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, said the failure to arrest more people is making their work more difficult.
“Look, now we have to comply with requests from the cell phone location, collect video footage to try to identify people and then accuse them, and then try to execute their arrest. This made things a challenge, but I cannot answer why these people were not tied up when they were leaving the building by the Capitol Police. “
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Associated Press writers Ben Fox, Mary Clare Jalonick, Andrew Taylor and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.