Capitol Police chief apologises for security failures during the assault

The acting chief of the Capitol Police apologised to Congress on Tuesday for the agency’s massive security failures Jan 6, acknowledging during a closed-door briefing that the department knew there was a “strong potential for violence” but failed to take adequate steps to prevent what she described as a “terrorist attack.”

Yogananda D Pittman, the acting chief of police, also confirmed that the Capitol Police Board, an obscure panel made up of three voting members, had initially declined a request two days earlier for National Guard troops and then delayed for more than an hour as the violence unfolded Jan 6 before finally agreeing to a plea from the Capitol Police for National Guard troops, according to prepared testimony obtained by The New York Times.

In an extraordinary admission, Pittman, who was not the acting chief at the time of the siege, told members of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees funding for the agency, that the Capitol Police “failed to meet its own high standards as well as yours.” She added, “I am here to offer my sincerest apologies on behalf of the department.”

Her comments offered the fullest detailed account to date about police preparations Jan. 6 in which thousands of angry protesters, believing false claims that the election had been stolen, marched on the Capitol at the behest of former President Donald Trump.

Speaking by video conference in a virtual briefing, Pittman told the subcommittee that the department “should have been more prepared for this attack,” according to the remarks.

Pittman said her department knew that Jan 6 would be unlike previous protests. She said her department knew that militia groups and white supremacists organizations would descend on Washington.

“We also knew that some of these participants were intending to bring firearms and other weapons to the event,” she said. “We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target. The department prepared in order to meet these challenges, but we did not do enough.”

She said the Capitol Police had 1,200 people working on site when the attack occurred, which was “no match” for “the tens of thousands of insurrectionists.”

Two days before the attack, Steven Sund, then the chief of the Capitol Police, requested that the Capitol Police Board declare a state of emergency and authorise a request to secure National Guard support. The board denied the request, according to Pittman, but encouraged Sund to contact the National Guard to determine how many guardsman could be sent to the Capitol on short notice, which he did.

As the protesters became an increasing threat to the Capitol on Jan 6, Sund asked for more help from federal agencies and law enforcement agencies in the area.

“He also lobbied the board for authorization to bring in the National Guard, but he was not granted authorization for over an hour,” she said.

Two of the board members at the time of the attack have already resigned: Paul D Irving, the House sergeant-at arms, and Michael C Stenger, the Senate sergeant-at-arms. The third member, J Brett Blanton, the architect of the Capitol, is still on the board. Blanton was nominated by Trump in December 2019 and confirmed by the Senate that same month. The chief of the Capitol Police serves in an ex officio, nonvoting capacity.

“In my experience, I do not believe there was any preparations that would have allowed for an open campus in which lawful protesters could exercise their first amendment right to free speech and at the same time prevented the attack on Capitol grounds that day,” Pittman said.

In the aftermath of the attack, many officers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, “particularly after the loss of two of our officers directly and indirectly as a result of the events of Jan 6.” Officers also have been an experiencing an increase in coronavirus infections.

During the briefing, the acting House sergeant-at-arms, Timothy P Blodgett, also said it was “clear there was a failure of preparation,” citing poor communications and a weak perimeter defense of the Capitol.

“Whether it was insufficient or conflicting intelligence, lacking ability to translate that intelligence into action, insufficient preparation or an inadequate ability to mobilize partner agencies for immediate assistance, a series of events, once thought unfathomable, unfolded allowing our most sacred halls to be breached,” Blodgett said.

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