CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF OUT
Resigns amid outrage over lack of readiness for riot;
Lawmakers at the highest levels of government demanded answers Thursday to the failure of security teams to protect the public and elected officials from angry protesters who breached the U.S. Capitol and ran roughshod over its authority.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund resigned hours after a livid House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for his ouster. She also removed the House sergeant at arms over the failure to protect Congress against violent, marauding pro-Trump protesters.
Pelosi, whose own office was trashed in the melee by vandals — including one pictured with his feet up on a desk in her suite, tore into Sund after thousands of MAGA loyalists brushed aside woefully outnumbered police and easily stormed the center of American democracy.
Four people died in the violent assault, according to CNN.
“There was a failure of leadership at the top of Capitol Police,” Pelosi told reporters. “He hasn’t even called us since this happened.”
The Capitol Police was only prepared for a free speech demonstration, and despite the warnings of an insurrection, turned down an offer of National Guard help from the Pentagon, according to Associated Press.
Sund will resign effective Jan. 16 following a breach of the Capitol not seen in more than 200 years.
“The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.,” Sund said in a statement, hours before issuing his resignation.
Pelosi also announced the resignation of the House sergeant at arms, and incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to oust the Senate’s top security official.
Even before Pelosi’s call, Sund’s force was under fire for allowing rioters to breach the supposedly heavily guarded legislative chambers and wreak chaos and shed blood inside the halls of Congress.
“You can bet your ass that we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told Politico.
Despite the disaster on his watch, Sund, who joined the force last year after three decades with the Washington police, suggested he was proud of the law enforcement effort and said nothing about quitting his post.
“The Capitol Police and our law enforcement partners responded valiantly when faced with thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions,” Sund said.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development, denounced the Capitol Police as “unprepared, ineffective and some complicit.”
“All of them should be held to account,” Fudge told USA Today.
The backlash came a day after thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol building as lawmakers voted to certify Biden’s Electoral College win.
The rioters ran through the building smashing windows
and breaking doors and even breached the inner chambers where, moments earlier, lawmakers had been voting before security rushed them out.
The fatalities include Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by Capitol police while trying to break through a door, and three other people who died from medical emergencies, according to officials.
Outrage over security spread beyond the walls of Congress. Not far from Capitol Hill, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser urged Congress to strip command of the local National Guard from President Trump — and hand it over to her until Biden is officially sworn in.
“A more robust presence on the ground of the Capitol would have prevented people from getting into the building,” Bowser said at a news conference.
Sixty-eight people — 60 men and eight women — have been arrested so far, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee III said during the presser.
Fifty-six members of the Metropolitan Police Department were also injured in the riots, he said. One officer is still in the hospital after he was beaten and tased.
“There was no intelligence that would suggest there would be a breach of the U.S. Capitol,” Contee said, noting that his agency will continue working with federal law enforcement to identify those who participated in the violent assault.
Federal authorities said they expect to arrest more than a dozen rioters who stormed the Capitol.
“Our criminal prosecutors have been working throughout the night with special agents and investigators from the U.S. Capitol Police, FBI, ATF, Metropolitan Police Department and the public to gather the evidence, identify perpetrators and charge federal crimes where warranted,” Acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen said in a statement.
“Some participants in yesterday’s violence will be charged today, and we will continue to methodically assess evidence, charge crimes and make arrests in the coming days and weeks to ensure that those responsible are held accountable under the law.”
Investigators are combing social media and cell phone records to determine who was involved in the destructive security breach that made international headlines.
The U.S. secretary of the Army also said some 800 security personnel will be on the Capitol grounds for the next 30 days.