I love being in the House or Senate chambers on the big days. There is something special about being in the room where it happens. It is more than just news. It is history and a privilege to tell people about it.
Even in the middle of a pandemic – I have an 18-month-old son – I took the opportunity to watch the electoral college vote count. It is usually a ceremonial moment, a kind of epilogue to the long campaign. But this time it was different. There would be objections raised by President Trump’s allies to try to overturn an election the President lost. This consolidation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory promised to be dramatic.
But my husband was concerned. Trump had encouraged the protests and feared they could become violent.
After putting the baby to bed on Tuesday night, he kindly asked me to be careful. “Wear street clothes that allow you to mix with the crowd,” he told me. “Jeans and a T-shirt.”
I arrived around 11:15 am on Wednesday, almost two hours before things started. I didn’t want to miss anything and I wanted to make sure I had time to get through security. I settled down in the press gallery, the chairs above the dais, and started to attend the joint session of Congress.
Senators and members of the House have not gone very far. They were counting the votes in alphabetical order from the states. Alabama came first, then Alaska. When they arrived in Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) Opposed the registration of the state’s 11 electoral votes. Each house withdrew to its chamber to debate its objections.
I stayed in the gallery of the house. Only half a dozen lawmakers finished speaking when I found out there could be problems. I was taking notes on my laptop when my phone rang at 1:41 pm. It was a text message from a House official sending me an alert from the Capitol Police.
“The Cannon Building is conducting internal relocation due to police activity,” said the alert. “All other employees must remain on the premises until further guidance is received from the USCP. If you are outside a Capitol building, follow the police officers’ instructions …. More information will be provided as it becomes available. “
I was following the events on Twitter and was aware that the protesters were outside the Capitol. The alert unnerved me, but this is Capitol, and threats are common.
Thirty minutes later, I went up the stairs and went to the press office to see if I could learn more. The office’s emergency radio came to life. Then came a woman’s voice, which seemed to panic: “Due to an external security threat located on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building, no entry or exit is permitted at this time. You can move around the building (s), but stay away from outside windows and doors. If you are out, seek coverage. “
I knew what I had to do. I ran down the stairs to my laptop. It was 2:15 pm. After typing an update for my editors, I looked over the camera’s ledge and noticed that the Mayor, Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the second in line behind the presidency, was gone. It was obvious that her security detachment had left her safe.
I heard confusion behind me, turned around and saw a dozen reporters being led to the gallery from the press offices. Then the police closed and locked the doors. Police stopped the process to announce that tear gas had been deployed at the roundabout.
A staff member handed me an evacuation hood, a heavy plastic bag that filters tear gas and chemicals. She told me to get past him and others on the line until everyone had one. The reporters were not the only ones in the gallery. Team members were monitoring the procedures. More than a dozen lawmakers also took seats in public galleries overlooking the floor of the Chamber. Now we were locked in the room together.
On the floor, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), A former combat marine, was holding his escape hood and explaining to other members how to use it. There were about 150 lawmakers there, and Gallego was shouting to get his attention.
“Open the first package!” he screamed.
“Then open the second one!”
“The hood then inflates on your head!”
A few minutes later, the police escorted Gallego and other lawmakers out of the room through a side door. Some lawmakers helped plainclothes police officers who were struggling with a huge bookcase and pushed it in front of the main double doors of the chamber, the same as the president enters into the State of the Union speech.
He started knocking on the door. The officers drew their weapons.
One of them looked up and saw the reporters and about two dozen representatives and staff climbing the railings in the upper gallery to get to the doors.
“Squat on the floor!” he screamed. “Go as low as you can!”
I slid behind a row of chairs and looked up when a female representative started to pray. Another member was talking loudly on his cell phone, providing a detailed description. Several lawmakers were crying.
I heard the glass on the main door of the chamber crack. I peeked into the chamber while Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) Tried to reason with those who tried to make their way inside.
A loud crack cut the air. It sounded like a gunshot. And then everything was quiet.
The policemen shouted for lawmakers in the gallery to leave, but none of those present had a key to the door. Lawmakers and police officers argued about opening the door and fleeing. The police wanted lawmakers to run to him.
The members disagreed. “Don’t open that door!” a representative shouted as an officer in the corridor fumbled with the door. “We don’t know who is behind this!”
I crawled to where Rep. Norma Torres (D-Pomona) was kneeling. She hugged me and asked about my baby, and I told her that he was fine.
She took my picture with her phone and posted it on Twitter, marking @latimes to alert my colleagues that I was okay.
“Can I do the hardest part of my job and ask what are you thinking about right now?” I asked.
It took her a second to compose her thoughts. “It is horrible that this is America, these are the United States of America and that is what we have to go through because Trump called local terrorists to come to the Capitol and invalidate people’s votes,” she said.
Moments later, the Capitol Police opened the gallery’s doors. They told us to leave quickly. They were taking us to a safe place. As we walked towards the third-floor staircase, I could see several policemen standing next to half a dozen protesters lying face down on the marble, their hands behind their heads.
Suddenly, I realized that I still hadn’t told my husband that I was safe.
“I’m fine. Being evacuated,” I texted him at 2:57 pm, too overwhelmed to go into details.
“Great exhale,” he replied. “Okay. Keep me updated. I love you.”
The police told us to follow them. We walked for several minutes, going down a maze to corridors and a spiral staircase. I have been working at the Capitol for eight years and I cannot tell you the path we have taken. As lawmakers, reporters and officials moved forward, I slowed down to be able to speak to a visibly shaken Dep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). He was livid. I took out my phone and broke the record. It took him a second to find his words.
“This shouldn’t happen in the United States,” he said, his eyes welling with tears.
We come to a safe room. That’s all I can say about it right now. It was big and full of leather chairs and walnut tables, and you’ve seen it on TV. It was already full of lawmakers, officials and other journalists. While members typed on their phones and were updated by security officials on the riot situation, the team distributed Goldfish cookies, fruit chips and small bottles of water.
One member led a prayer. Another, a former emergency room doctor, reminded me to stay hydrated. A group of Democrats grumbled about Republicans not wearing masks.
I sought out California lawmakers and started interviewing them. After each one, I uploaded the audio for my colleagues to my bureau to add to the stories on our website.
One member pleaded with colleagues not to give interviews to reporters. They were concerned that we might accidentally betray our location.
Kimbriell Kelly, my boss, sent me a message asking for a first-person video of what the room was like. I said I couldn’t. Lawmakers were “in a panic that I might inadvertently reveal their location,” I told her. “Will I do it in writing, if that’s okay?”
That detail “hit me in the stomach,” she wrote back.
An hour passed. My husband sent me a picture of my baby smiling. It tore me apart.
Shortly after 5:30 pm, the arms sergeant, the Chamber’s chief security officer, announced that the Capitol had been protected, but asked members to remain on the scene. He wanted a little more time, he said, to ensure their safety. Ninety minutes later, Pelosi came to speak with the remaining members (some went back to their offices). The speaker criticized the “mobs that desecrate the corridors of the United States Capitol” and declared that the House and the Senate would return immediately to finish their work. The speaker said she did not want the troublemakers to think they had won.
Forty-five minutes later, more than four hours after being locked inside, I was allowed to leave. There was only one place for me to go.
I went up the stairs back to the gallery – to tell the story.