Unprepared:
Capitol police did not bolster staffing or make plans for problems.
WASHINGTON — Despite ample warnings about proTrump demonstrations in Washington, U. S. Capitol Police did not bolster staffing last Wednesday and made no preparations for the possibility that the planned protests could escalate into huge violent riots, according to several people briefed on law enforcement’s response.
The revelations shed new light on why Capitol Police were so quickly overrun by rioters. The department had the same number of officers in place as on a routine day. While some of those officers were outfitted with equipment for a protest, they were not staffed or equipped for a riot.
Once the mob began to move on the Capitol, a police lieutenant issued an order not to use deadly force, which explains why officers outside the building did not draw their weapons as the crowd closed in.
Officers are sometimes ordered against escalating a situation by drawing their weapons if superiors believe doing so could lead to a stampede or a shootout. In this instance, it also left officers with little ability to resist the mob.
“They were left naked,” Rep. Maxine Waters, DLos Angeles, said of the police. She had raised security concerns in a Dec. 28 meeting of House Democrats and grilled Steven Sund, the Capitol Police chief, during an hourlong call on New Year’s Eve. “It turns out it was the worst kind of nonsecurity anybody could ever imagine.”
In an interview with the Washington Post, Sund said he had asked House and Senate security officials ahead of time for permission to request that the D. C. National Guard be placed on standby in case he needed quick backup. But he said he was turned down.
“If we would have had the National Guard we could have held them at bay longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,” he told the Post. He said his superiors had been uncomfortable with the “optics” of formally declaring an emergency ahead of Wednesday’s demonstration.
The Capitol Police’s lackluster response to the riots, poor planning and failure to anticipate the seriousness of the threat have drawn condemnation from lawmakers and prompted the ouster of the department’s chief and the sergeants at arms of both the House and Senate.
As the full extent of the insurrection becomes clear, the FBI is also investigating whether some of the rioters had plans to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage.
Investigators are particularly focused on why some of them were seen carrying plastic ziptie handcuffs and had apparently accessed areas of the Capitol generally difficult for the public to locate, according to an official.
The official was among four briefed on Wednesday’s incident who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
The crowd that arrived in Washington on Wednesday was no surprise. Trump had been urging his supporters to come to the capital and some hotels had been booked to 100% capacity — setting off alarm bells because tourism in Washington has cratered amid the pandemic. Justice officials, FBI and other agencies began to monitor flights and social media for weeks and were expecting major crowds.
Capitol Police leaders, however, had prepared for a free speech demonstration. No fencing was erected outside the Capitol and no contingency plans were prepared in case the situation escalated, according to people briefed.
One officer died in the riot and at least a dozen were injured. The officials wouldn’t reveal the specific number of officers onduty over concerns about disclosing operational details, but confirmed that the numbers were on par with a routine protest.