The head of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told senators on Tuesday that there was an initial “reluctance” to send the National Guard during the January 6 riot at the Capitol – a backlash that “surprised” him and “stunned”, given the seriousness of the violent attack.
Acting Chief Robert Contee testified before a pair of Senate committees, saying he was part of an emergency call with leaders of the Capitol Police, the National Guard on January 6 at 2:22 p.m. – more than an hour after his troops were summoned to the Capitol. and the Department of the Army.
“I was amazed at the reluctance to immediately send the National Guard to the Capitol,” Contee told senators from the Rules and Homeland Security committees.
Almost an hour would pass before the Pentagon approved the deployment of more guard troops to defuse the violent mob, and those troops would not arrive at the Capitol until 5:40 PM – more than four hours after Steven Sund, when the chief of the Capitol Police, had requested federal reinforcement.
That long delay has become a central focus of Congress’s investigation into the deadly attack, an investigation launched publicly during Tuesday’s Senate hearing.
Contee said his office had called for help from police departments up to New Jersey at 2:30 p.m., within minutes of the Pentagon’s emergency call.
“From then on, it took another 3 1/2 hours for all the rioters to be removed from the Capitol,” said Contee.
Other witnesses testifying before the Senate include Sund, former House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving and former Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger, all of whom were in charge on Jan. 6 but have since stepped down.
Echoing the others’ reports, Contee told lawmakers there was intelligence showing that protests in support of former President Trump
Donald Trump Fauci: US Political Divide Over Masks Leads to Half a Million COVID-19 Deaths Bishop of Georgia says GOP state election law is an ‘attempt to suppress black vote’ court on tax returns MORE on January 6, there could be talk of “acts of violence in the streets” of Washington – and possibly armed protesters as well. But there were no signs of a violent uprising by the Capitol.
“The district did not have any intelligence suggesting a coordinated attack on the Capitol,” his prepared statement reads.
Contee said 300 unarmed members of the DC National Guard were initially deployed on the day of the attack, but only to provide air traffic control and other non-interventionist services. He noted that because Washington is not a state, only the president, not DC officials, has the authority to stand guard.
Contee highlighted other limitations on the authority of the DC Police, including the fact that it has no jurisdiction to patrol or make arrests in the Capitol without an explicit request from the Capitol Police. That request, Contee testified, came from Sund just before 1:00 pm on January 6, and MPD arrived on the scene “within minutes”.
More than 1,100 district police officers would eventually respond to the attack, Contee said, and 65 of them were injured. A 66th would commit suicide a few days later.
“These tools were hardly enough to counteract an event that had never happened in the history of the United States,” he said. “A crowd of thousands of US citizens launches a violent attack on the Capitol … in an effort to stop electoral ballots counting.”