Members of Congress are falling over themselves to praise the bravery of the Capitol Police since the attack on January 6.
But behind the scenes, the Capitol Police have released ballots as a vote of no confidence in their management. Both Democrats and Republicans have praised officers for the quick thinking that saved some members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence from the rioters, but officers are upset precisely because they had to improvise after their managers fail. had succeeded in planning the attack. .
BuzzFeed News has spoken to Black Capitol police officers in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol. They want to be called more than just heroes. They want the leadership of the Capitol Police and Congress, which directly oversee the department, radically change the culture, which they say led directly to the catastrophic failure to prepare for the Capitol riot. The agents said they believe the first step to reform the agency would be to introduce transparency and accountability. As part of the legislature, the agency is not subject to freedom of information requests. What little was known about the department before January 6 came largely from lawsuits for alleged discrimination brought against the agency by women and minority officials.
Officers cast their votes of no confidence for a 24-hour period beginning at 3 p.m. on Thursday. The ballot asks officers to vote on six chiefs, who together represent almost all of the division’s supreme command. The mood is not binding and cannot by itself remove the copper color. But for a veteran officer, the mood is key to moving the conversation from what he described as “ political theater ” to real accountability that would compel department leadership and Congress to address the officers’ concerns.
On Thursday morning, shortly before the vote of no confidence began, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that officers on duty on the day of the attack would receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor awarded by Congress.
To an experienced officer who spoke to BuzzFeed News last month and whose story was marked by Rep. Jamie Raskin In the Democrats’ opening statement at the impeachment hearing, the news was that he and his colleagues would receive the Congressional Gold Medal “like an adrenaline injection in the arm” after a week’s emotional rollercoaster ride.
But on the other hand, the medal felt like a distraction to agents’ attempts to use the no-confidence motion to call for substantive change within the department.
“We are paid to do a job. We don’t really want or need the recognition, ”said the veteran with nearly two decades of service. “If they wanted to show their appreciation, there are tons of other ways to do that.”
The agents are still dealing with the physical and emotional aftermath of the attack, in which a colleague, Brian Sicknick, was killed while on duty.
“Anyone would exchange all of this for Sicknick back, as would anyone out with their various injuries. Political theater is part of the game; it just feels slimy and unfair, ”he said.
The officer also said he felt conflicted at Officer Sicknick’s memorial service last week. “We were used as props. They had us in the square and they were taking pictures and all that sort of thing, ”he said. “I have nothing but respect for him and just want to honor his memory, but it just didn’t sit well with me or with many of the agents I spoke to.”
“We had a lot of brass that was front and center, but where were you on the sixth?” he said. “Where were you when people needed you to make decisions?”
On this week’s ballot are Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman, Assistant Chief Chad Thomas, Acting Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Pickett, Deputy Chief Eric Waldow, and Deputy Chief Timothy Bowen. In a memo to regular officials, the union’s board of directors explained why they targeted those leaders: “We cannot begin to address the ministry’s systemic failures without new leadership,” the memo said. “We have leaders in this department. Leaders we trust who will work with the union to make the changes we need to make. These leaders exist, but not at the Chief, Assistant Chief, and Deputy Chief level. “
The veteran officer, who has been with the department for nearly two decades, plans to vote “no confidence” for all six chiefs on the ballot this week. ‘A chief came to the roll call yesterday. I’ve never seen this man in my life, ”he said. “These people are in a glass tower, you never see them, and now that this has happened, we cannot keep them away. It just seems so insincere and blatant screams of ‘I’m just trying to protect myself from whatever comes down the pipeline.’ ”
The agents who spoke to BuzzFeed News were divided on who should go.
An officer said he supported the new acting chief, Yogananda Pittman, but would vote “no confidence” for three leaders he said were “nowhere to be found” on January 6. But he is not confident that even removing those leaders would be enough to change a culture in which he said they are treated as glorified TSA agents by members of Congress who are doing their best to do even basic police work. often requiring agents to wave them and their visitors through security checks. To change culture, he said, members of Congress would have to start respecting officers.
Another officer, who has been with the department for about ten years, said all he was sure was that he would issue a vote of no confidence in one of the deputy chiefs, which the officer said did not belong either. from or see on January 6.
“He’s been a chef for years, and no one knows who he is; he never spoke to anyone, ”he said of Thomas. “If he wasn’t in a uniform, nobody would know who he was.”
In a memo sent to regular officers on the eve of the vote, Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said she understood the “anger and frustration” of officers. And she added that while the vote was not binding, “it does speak to the sentiment and concerns of some of our officers.”
In response to questions from BuzzFeed News, a department spokesman pointed to the chief’s statement.
But to some officers, Pittman’s words sounded hollow. Before being promoted to acting chief following the departure of former chief Steven Sund, who was forced to resign due to the department’s flat-footed response to the uprising, Pittman was the head of the intelligence operation.
In a closed-door briefing with the House Appropriations Committee in late January, Pittman admitted that her department had failed to adequately prepare for the attack on the Capitol.
“On January 4, the ministry knew that the January 6 event would not resemble the previous protests in 2020,” said Pittman’s testimony. We knew that militia groups and white supremacist organizations would be in attendance. We also knew that some of these participants were planning to bring firearms and other weapons to the event. We knew there was great potential for violence and that Congress would was targeted. “
For an experienced officer of nearly two decades, that admission alone should result in the removal of all management. “They had information and refused to distribute it, and they endangered the lives of countless officers … This is what the chief admitted to the commission.”
In her note to the officers this week, Pittman promised they would get the tools and resources they need to prevent another failure, such as January 6. But for the veteran officer who plans not to put confidence in all six chiefs, more training and resources isn’t the problem.
“They’re just going to throw a lot of money into some things and we’ll do a lot of training and they’ll hire an outside agency to give us this new tool or whatever the best training of the year, and they’ll do the department. charge an exorbitant amount to do it, ”the officer said.
For this officer, the only way to advance the department is to abolish its current leadership.
“I don’t think that’s a panacea,” he said, but “there’s no way we can move forward with the people who were in charge when [the attack] took place.”
He said he and his colleagues were struggling to move on. He didn’t realize how angry he was until last weekend when he first saw his mother and they started talking about what happened on January 6. He said he could see the pain and horror on her face.
‘It just touched me in a whole new way. Normally I’m a very positive, jovial person, but I’ve been furious ever since, ”he said. “It’s not a good situation to be in a workplace and not trust the people who make decisions that can determine whether I go home or my colleagues go home.”
“It’s a terrible place to work right now, and that’s not what you want with people carrying guns for a living.”