“We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously,” said interim chief Yogananda Pittman in a statement. “As soon as this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Professional Responsibility Office could thoroughly investigate.”
The official will be suspended pending the results of the investigation, the statement said.
Fisch shared his experience on a Twitter topic Monday night after the suspension was announced.
“When I left my office in Longworth yesterday, I discovered something that, as a Jew, horrified me,” he wrote. “At the security checkpoint of the United States Capitol Police, someone left a vile anti-Semitic propaganda in plain sight.”
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the text, entitled The Protocols of the Meetings of the Elders of Zion, “is entirely a work of fiction, intentionally written to blame Jews for a variety of evils.” Its exact origins are unknown, but it was introduced to Adolf Hitler when he was developing his worldview and referenced by him in his first speeches, according to the museum.
Fisch said on Twitter that this episode is evidence that it hasn’t changed much since the deadly January 6 riots on Capitol Hill, where at least one man was photographed wearing a sweatshirt that read “Camp Auschwitz”, a reference to the concentration camp where more than 1 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Fisch described the document as “tattered and over two years old” and said he had a lot of doubts about what it meant: did other officers read this? Did they share the same beliefs?
“This is a national security problem and a security problem in the workplace,” wrote Fisch. “Our office is full of people – black, brown, Jewish, queer – who have good reason to fear white supremacists. If the USCP is all that stands between us and the crowd we saw on January 6, how can we feel safe? “
While the Capitol Police were widely praised for their response to the riots – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented a bill to award it with a Congressional gold medal – concerns were also raised about the actions of a small number of officers, with videos showing them being knocked down barricades and, in one case, stopping to take a picture with a hooligan. At least two policemen have been suspended.