Outgoing Capitol police chief Steven Sund accused House and Senate security officials of hindering multiple attempts before and during the Capitol riots to call in the National Guard.
Healthy told The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday night – his first since the events at the Capitol on Wednesday – that he asked House and Senate security officials in the days before Congress was instituted to have the electoral college vote to allow him Request the DC National Guard on standby in case troops were needed for the pro-President Trump
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But the Capitol Police Chief, who was officially replaced as chef on Friday afterwards his resignation, said the newspaper that officials denied the request.
Sund reported that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving said he was uncomfortable with the “ optics ” of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests, and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended Sund wait informally to request to be ready for last Wednesday.
“We knew it would be bigger,” Sund told the Post. “We looked at the intelligence. We knew we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent hassles. I had nothing to indicate that we would have a large crowd occupying the Capitol. “
The outgoing chief said his request ahead of the riots was the first of six calls for help to be rejected or delayed. When the pro-Trump crowd reached the Capitol at approximately 12:40 a.m., it took about 15 minutes for the western perimeter to be breached, he said.
“If we had the National Guard, we could have kept them at bay for longer, until more agents from our partner offices could arrive,” he said.
Sund said at 2:26 PM that he asked the Pentagon for support during a conference call. But a senior army official said he could not recommend the army secretary Ryan McCarthyRyan McCarthy Night Defense: Pentagon Chief Condemns Capitol Riot | House Speaker Calls for Trump’s Removal | Fence built around Capitol | Woman killed an Air Force veterinarian Democratic Senator over concerns over DC Guard inauguration security to put 7 foot ‘non-scalable fence’ around Capitol after violent riot MORE authorize it by saying “I don’t like the image of the National Guard standing in a police line with the Capitol in the background,” the Post reported, citing participants in the call.
The first National Guard personnel arrived at 5:40 PM, after four of the now five deaths had already occurred in the riots.
The post failed to reach Irving for comment, and Stenger declined to comment, telling a reporter, “I really don’t want to talk about it.” Both officials resigned after the riots under pressure from lawmakers.
Pentagon officials have pointed out that Capitol Police did not request DC National Guard prior to the protest, nor any contingency plan for riot involving the Guard.
“We are relying on Capitol Police and federal law enforcement to provide an assessment of the situation,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said last week, according to the Post. “And based on that rating they had, they thought they had enough staff and didn’t make a request.”
But Sund warns that “if they don’t get their job together with physical security, it will happen again,” possibly to president-elect Joe Biden
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