The U.S Capitol Police rejected National Guard and FBI assistance in the days and hours leading up to Wednesday's attack on Co...
The U.S Capitol Police rejected National Guard and FBI assistance in the days and hours leading up to Wednesday's attack on Congress, multiple sources say.
Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump rioted at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower, but the offer was declined, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.
Then as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Capitol Police rejected an offer of FBI support from Justice Department leaders, the people said.
Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, the Capitol Police planned only for a free speech demonstration.
Still stinging from the uproar over the violent response by law enforcement to protests last June near the White House, when Trump ordered police - reinforced by Guardsmen - to clear a path for a photo op by a church, Capitol Police officials were also intent on avoiding any appearance that the federal government was deploying active duty or National Guard troops against Americans.
The disastrous result is the U.S. Capitol was overrun Wednesday and officers in a law enforcement agency with a large operating budget and experience in high-security events protecting lawmakers were overwhelmed for the world to see.
Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump rioted at the Capitol (above), the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower, but the offer was declined, according to senior defense officials
Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, the Capitol Police planned only for a free speech demonstration and were massively undermanned to repel the attack
The lax security at the Capitol (left) contrasted with the rings of barricades installed at the White House (right) in November in anticipation of unrest on Election Day
Officials were also intent on avoiding any appearance that the federal government was deploying active duty or National Guard troops against Americans, Above, an explosion caused by a police munition is seen at the Capitol on Wednesday
Hours after the breach on Wednesday, National Guard troops finally arrived to help clear streets and secure the Capitol
Four protesters died, including one shot by police inside the building, and one Capitol Police officer died after suffering injuries in the attack.
The rioting and loss of control has raised serious questions over security at the Capitol for future events, including Joe Biden's presidential inauguration less than two weeks from now.
The events of January 6 also raise troubling concerns about the treatment of mainly white Trump supporters, who were allowed to roam through the building for hours, while Black Lives Matter protesters who demonstrated last year over police brutality faced more robust and aggressive policing.
'This was a failure of imagination, a failure of leadership,' said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, whose department responded to several large protests last year following the death of George Floyd. 'The Capitol Police must do better and I don´t see how we can get around that.'
Acevedo said he has attended events on the Capitol grounds to honor slain police officers that had higher fences and a stronger security presence than what he saw on video Wednesday.
In a speech on Thursday, Biden agreed there was a sharp contrast.
'No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently from the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,' he said.
Pro-Trump protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress on Wednesday
A U.S. Capitol police officer shoots pepper spray at a protester attempting to enter the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election results on Capitol Hill in Washington DC
Police use tear gas guns to disperse pro-Trump protesters outside the United States Capitol during the Pro-Trump rally. Pro-Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol after the election loss of US President Donald Trump
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said that as the rioting was underway, it became clear that the Capitol Police were overrun. But he said there was no contingency planning done in advance for what forces could do in case of a problem at the Capitol because Defense Department help was turned down. 'They've got to ask us, the request has to come to us,' said McCarthy.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, under pressure from Schumer, Pelosi and other congressional leaders, was forced to resign.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked for and received the resignation of the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, Michael Stenger, effective immediately. Paul Irving, the longtime Sergeant at Arms of the House, also resigned.
The sergeants at arms are the chief law enforcement and protocol officers of the respective houses of Congress, responsible maintaining order in the chambers and associated parts of the Capitol complex.
'There was a failure of leadership at the top,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
The U.S. Capitol had been closed to the public since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 360,000 people in the U.S. But normally, the building is open to the public and lawmakers pride themselves on their availability to their constituents.
It is not clear how many officers were on-duty Wednesday, but the complex is policed by a total of 2,300 officers for 16 acres of ground who protect the 435 House representatives, 100 U.S. senators and their staff.
By comparison, the city of Minneapolis has about 840 uniformed officers policing a population of 425,000 in a 6,000-acre area.
Key security officials (left to right) Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund, House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving, and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger all resigned on Thursday
On Thursday, workers reinforced the security perimeter at the Capitol after the fatal events of January 6. In the aftermath, a 7-foot fence will go up around the Capitol grounds for at least 30 days.
Security at the Capitol stood in start contrast to the massive 'non-scalable' fence that was erected outside the White House in early November in anticipation of Election Day unrest in Washington, DC
There were signs for weeks that violence could strike on January 6, when Congress convened for a joint session to finish counting the Electoral College votes that would confirm Democrat Joe Biden had won the presidential election.
On far-right message boards and in pro-Trump circles, plans were being made.
The leader of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys was arrested coming into the nation's capital this week on a weapons charge for carrying empty high-capacity magazines emblazoned with their logo. He admitted to police that he had made statements about rioting in Washington, local officials said.
Both Acevedo and Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner who led the department during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, said they did not fault the responses of clearly overmatched front-line officers, but the planning and leadership before the riot.
'Was there a structural feeling that well, these are a bunch of conservatives, they're not going to do anything like this? Quite possibly,' Davis said. 'That's where the racial component to this comes into play in my mind. Was there a lack of urgency or a sense that this could never happen with this crowd? Is that possible? Absolutely.'
Trump and his allies were perhaps the biggest megaphones, encouraging protesters to turn out in force and support his false claim that the election had been stolen from him.
He egged them on during a rally shortly before they marched to the Capitol and rioted. His personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor known for his tough-on-crime stance, called for 'trial by combat.'
Shortly before 2pm, the rioters descended on Capitol Hill while lawmakers were inside certifying the vote. Over the next two hours, the violence escalated. Some broke into politicians' offices, tauntingly sat at their desks and left threatening notes. One of the protesters was shot dead by cops (bottom right)
Video stills show how the cops were completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowd. They breezed past them before storming into the Capitol building
McCarthy said law enforcement's intelligence estimates of the potential crowd size in the run-up to the protests 'were all over the board,' from a low of 2,000 to as many as 80,000.
So the Capitol Police had set up no hard perimeter around the Capitol. Officers were focused on one side where lawmakers were entering to vote to certify Biden´s win.
Barricades were set up on the plaza in front of the building, but police retreated from the line and a mob of people broke through. Lawmakers, at first unaware of the security breach, continued their debate. Soon they were cowering under chairs. Eventually they were escorted from the House and Senate. Journalists were left alone in rooms for hours as the mob attempted to break into barricaded rooms.
Sund, the Capitol Police chief, said he had expected a display of 'First Amendment activities' that instead turned into a 'violent attack.' But Gus Papathanasiou, head of the Capitol Police union, said planning failures left officers exposed without backup or equipment against surging crowds of rioters.
'We were lucky that more of those who breached the Capitol did not have firearms or explosives and did not have a more malign intent,' Papathanasiou said in a statement. 'Tragic as the deaths are that resulted from the attack, we are fortunate the casualty toll was not higher.'
The Justice Department, FBI and other agencies began to monitor hotels, flights and social media for weeks and were expecting large crowds.
Just before the U.S. Capitol building is breached, the Capitol Police are hit with bear spray while trying to keep the protestors outside
Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed inside the US Capitol when Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building and violently clashed with police in a bid to stop Joe Biden's victory being certified
Mayor Muriel Bowser had warned of impending violence for weeks, and businesses had closed in anticipation. She requested National Guard help from the Pentagon on December 31, but the Capitol Police turned down the January 3 offer from the Defense Department, according to Kenneth Rapuano, assistant defense secretary for homeland security.
'We asked more than once and the final return that we got on Sunday the 3rd was that they would not be asking DOD for assistance,' he said.
The Justice Department´s offer for FBI support as the protesters grew violent was rejected by the Capitol Police, according to the two people familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
By then, it was too late.
It wasn't until 3.51pm on Wednesday - nearly four hours after Trump spoke at the rally - that 1,100 armed National Guardsmen were finally mobilized. Five thousand more from neighboring states were drafted in but they were inexplicably told to stage outside the Capitol and not go to the center of the action to help.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department descended. Agents from nearly every Justice Department agency, including the FBI, were called in. So was the Secret Service and the Federal Protective Service. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent two tactical teams. Police from as far away as New Jersey arrived to help.
It took four hours to evict the protesters from the Capitol complex. By then, they had roamed the halls of Congress, posed for photos inside hallowed chambers, broken through doors, destroyed property and taken photos of themselves doing it. Only 13 were arrested at the time; scores were arrested later.
In the aftermath, a 7-foot fence will go up around the Capitol grounds for at least 30 days. The Capitol Police will conduct a review of the carnage, as well as their planning and policies. Lawmakers plan to investigate how authorities handled the rioting.
The acting U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, said the failure to arrest more people is making their jobs harder.
'Look, we have to now go through cell site orders, collect video footage to try to identify people and then charge them, and then try to execute their arrest. So that has made things challenging, but I can´t answer why those people weren't zip-tied as they were leaving the building by the Capitol Police.'
Posing for pics: Police in the Capitol are seen agreeing to take selfie pictures with members of the MAGA mob who stormed the center of US democracy
Now, defense and police officials cited by The Wall Street Journal say it was a deliberate move not to put heavily armed cops or troops on the streets because they didn't want to inflame tensions between protesters and counter-protesters.
The sources say that police were trying to avoid the tensions that were seen during the summer - when BLM protesters clashed with police in cities all over the country.
The strategy backfired gravely on Wednesday.
Videos have emerged showing some officers assisting some of the rioters down the steps of the Capitol building, standing aside as crowds rush past them and even running away in fear from them up flights of stairs.
Those images stand in stark contrast to the stealthy response shown from the police during the BLM protests of the summer. Only 80 people have been arrested and the police are asking for public help to identify dozens of others. In June, 289 were arrested during a single night of BLM protests.
Now, outraged Americans are demanding answers as to why more was not done to stop the crowds and prevent the first violent breach of the Capitol since 1814.
Capitol Hill police face tough questions on why more was not done to prepare for the chaos.
At a press conference on Thursday, Mayor Bowser said 'clearly' there had been 'a failure' but she blamed it on the varying jurisdictions between DC Metropolitan Police Department and Capitol Police.
'There is going to be a lot of time for us to figure out what happened.
'Obviously, it was a failure or you wouldn't have had police lines breached and people terrorizing members of congress and doing a sacred constitutional requirement.
'Clearly there was a failure. There's going to have to be a real investigation into what happened,' she said.
She shrugged responsibility for the policing failure, saying it was down to Capitol Police and not MPD - which she is in charge of - to prepare for it.
'The Capitol have their own police departments.
'We cannot decide for the Capitol that we are going to be their police department but we stand ready to assist them in any case,' she said.
She didn't say why MPD officers weren't there to begin with.
Capitol Police say they called in MPD officers after the rioters staged their coup at 2pm.
In a statement earlier on Thursday, Chief Sund defended his officers' efforts as 'valiant,' but said the force was going to carry out a review of what went wrong.
'United States Capitol Police officers and our law enforcement partners responded valiantly when faced with thousands of individuals involved in riotous actions as they stormed the United States Capitol Building.
'These individuals actively attacked United States Capitol Officers and other uniformed law enforcement officers with metal pipes, discharged chemical irritants and took up other weapons against our officers.
'They were determined to enter into Capitol Building by causing great damage.
'The violent attack on the US Capitol is unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington DC. Maintaining public safety in an open environment - specifically First Amendment activities - has long been a challenge.'
He added that the force had a 'robust plan' to respond to peaceful protests.
'The USCP had a robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities. But make no mistake - these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior.
'The actions of the USCP officers were heroic given the situation they faced and I continue to have tremendous respect in the professionalism and dedication of the women and men of the United States Capitol Police.
'The USCP is conducting a thorough review of this incident, security planning and policies and procedures.'
It wasn't until 3.51pm that 1,100 National Guard troops were scrambled to assist Capitol police. By then, a Trump supporter had been shot and killed as she tried to breach the building.
The decision was eventually made by acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller but it's unclear why he and everyone else waited so long.
Additional National Guard troops from Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware were put on standby but it's also unclear why they weren't told to go straight to the Capitol to help.
On December 31, Mayor Bowser submitted a request for National Guard troops to be in the city from January 5-January 7.
She cited Trump's rally as the reason and the fact that it had been timed to coincide with the certification of the vote.
But Bowser was only given 340 unarmed troops to assist with traffic control.
On Monday, at a press conference, she vowed not to let rioters take over the city or cause violence but she said nothing about needing extra help from the National Guard.
Acting DC Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee also said that he knew 'armed' protesters were due to form large crowds
'There are people intent on coming to our city armed. Some of our intelligence certainly suggests there will be increased crowd sizes,' he said.
Still, nothing was done to beef up the response.
On Thursday morning, DC Attorney General Karl Racine said they'd been 'let down' by federal partners.
Speaking on MSNBC, he said: 'D.C. law enforcement officers, frankly, they did their jobs.
'They helped the Capitol Police restore order and arrested folks pursuant to the curfew order that Mayor Bowser invoked.
'Our federal partners let us down.'
He also called for a 'full accounting' and investigation of the Capitol breach.
'That means FBI, the videotapes, the photos, the social media — go ahead and fully investigate and fully prosecute those who terrorized the Capitol,' he said.
For days before Wednesday's chaos, the rioters were openly discussing their plans to overtake the Capitol or the very least incite violence.
On niche websites like TheDonald, Trump fans told one another to 'bring guns' to the Capitol to fight the certification of Joe Biden's election win.
'All this bulls**t about not bringing guns to D.C. needs to stop.
'This is America. F*** D.C. it's in the Constitution. Bring your goddamn guns,' said one post which received more than 5,000 'upvotes'.
Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow with DFRLab, told BuzzFeed on Wednesday: 'Extremists have for weeks repeatedly expressed their intentions to attend the January 6 protests, and unabashedly voiced their desire for chaos and violence online.
'What we've witnessed is the manifestation of that violent online rhetoric into real-life danger.
A pipe bomb was left outside the RNC on Wednesday
'The earliest call we got on our radar for today specifically was a militia movement chatroom talking about being 'ready for blood' if things didn't start changing for Trump.'
Former DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey was among the many incredulous voices on Wednesday as he watched the situation unfold.
'How they were not ready for this today, I have no idea.
'They were overwhelmed, they did not have the resources. You have to be able to protect the Capitol. That is not OK.'
Earlier, he said in an interview with CNN: 'There's no way they should have gotten into that building in my opinion, but we'll look into that later that's kind of like the hogwash after the event.
'Right now, they've got to retake the capitol and they're going to have to do it using force.
'Anybody inside that building as far as I'm concerned ought to be face down in handcuffs right now,' he added.
'That's what they ought to be doing. I don't know what they're doing in there, but they need to be locking them up without question.'
'There's chatter on the internet now about occupy DC so I don't know whether this is part of it or not but they're going to have to be on high alert.
'They're not going to be able to let these people establish camps or anything like that, but their next challenge will be on January 20 on inauguration day but in the meantime these next couple of days are going to be pretty dicey.'
He added that hoped Biden counter protesters would not emerge on Wednesday night so that the rest of the demonstrations could continue more peacefully.
'I mean this is a mess, so they'd better establish control as soon as possible,' Ramsey continued.
'Let me tell you it's not going to be pretty, they're going to have to use physical force to get these folks moving and out of there but they've got to take back the Capitol there's no two ways about it.'
A former FBI Executive also said the police were 'unprepared'.
'The Capitol Police were unprepared for the sheer size of the protest. Up until they breached the Capitol, the possibility existed that it was going to be a large protest that didn't cross those barricades.
Supporters of President Donald Trump breech the U.S. Capitol as election results are to be certified in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 after breezing past cops
Capitol Police turn their backs to the mob on Wednesday as thousands descend on the Capitol Building
Trump rioters scale the walls of the US Capitol Building after storming past police
Demonstrators break TV equipment outside the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President
A supporters of President Donald Trump takes a seat holding a shield outside the Senate Chamber as violence erupted at the Capitol
Richard 'Bigo' Barnett puts feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk after breaking into the Capitol
A 7ft fence being erected on Thursday after the attemptedcoup
Efforts are now underway to secure the Capitol. Joe Biden will be inaugurated in two weeks
'Once they did that [law enforcement personnel] were overwhelmed and couldn't respond quickly enough,' David Gomez, a retired FBI executive, told The Wall Street Journal.
Larry Schaefer, a retired Capitol Police veteran, told Pro Publica that he was baffled by the response.
'It's not a spur-of-the-moment demonstration that just popped up.
'We have a planned, known demonstration that has a propensity for violence in the past and threats to carry weapons — why would you not prepare yourself as we have done in the past?' he asked.
On Thursday morning, political pundits and commentators across the board raged at Capitol Police and DC officials for allowing the chaos to escalate so gravely.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough fumed on Morning Joe: 'I've got no questions for Donald Trump, he's an insurrectionist, there are no questions, he should be arrested today, he should be sent to jail today for insurrection against the United States of America.
'But I do wonder this morning why they weren't better prepared for this? Why weren't the Capitol Hill police better prepared for this?
'I never complained when they were tough, I want them to protect the people's house!
'Yesterday, we see them patting terrorists on the back, we see them taking selfies with people who are committing and insurrection against the United States of America, politely opening the door for terrorists who had scrawled on the door 'murder the media,' who had broken through this glass?
'Letting them just walk through, letting these Trump supporters walk through freely.
'And politely opening doors. To the insurrectionists.
'There has to be an investigation.
'How many of these Capitol Hill cops are members of Donald Trump's cult? How many? How many allowed this to happen? And I do want to know, where the hell were the D.C. police?
'If these insurrectionists were black, they would have been shot in the face. And my God, if these insurrections had been were Muslim, they would have been sniped from the tops of buildings.
'So I want to know from the Capitol Hill police, what is it, just white people? Or is it Donald Trump supporters?
'Why do you scream at people for walking across the street three blocks away from the capitol?
'Why are you known as bada**es around the capitol, but then Trump supporters come in and you hold open the f*****g doors for them?
'You open the doors for them? And let them breach the people's house! What is wrong with you? '
Rep. Tim Ryan said that he believed there were some 'strategic mistakes from the very beginning' after videos emerged on social media that appeared to show officers taking aside barriers for demonstrators and even taking selfies with them.
He promised that Capitol Police would face imminent firings for the 'embarrassment' that was their response to the 'attempted coup'.
'I think it's pretty clear that there's going to be a number of people who are going to be without employment very, very soon,' Ryan said, 'because this is an embarrassment — both on behalf of the mob and the president, and the insurrection and the attempted coup, but also the lack of professional planning and dealing with what we knew was going to occur.'
'You can bet your a** that we're going to get to the bottom of it,' the Ohio Democrat added.
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