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The Capitol Police Union blasted the department’s leadership a day after Acting Police Chief Yogananda Pittman testified in Congress, who said the department knew two days before Jan.6 that there was a ” high potential for violence and that Congress was the target. “
“The disclosure that the entire management team (former chief [Steven] Sund, now Acting Chief Pittman, and Deputy Chief [Chad] Thomas) knew what was going to happen but did not prepare us better for possible violence, including the possible use of firearms against us, is unacceptable, ”union president Gus Papathanasiou said on Wednesday in a statement. communicated.
He said it was “inexcusable” that no one informed the officers before the insurgency.
The acting U.S. Capitol Police chief apologized to lawmakers during Tuesday’s hearing for not being better prepared for the attack.
“Let me be clear: the Department should have been better prepared for this attack,” Acting Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said in written testimony to the House Credit Committee obtained by ABC News.
“I am here to offer my sincere apologies on behalf of the Department,” she said in her remarks.
Metropolitan Police Department Acting Police Chief Robert Contee, who ordered more than 1,000 of his officers to help defend the Capitol, provided his own testimony at the Congressional closed hearing , telling the committee: “This assault on Capitol Hill has exposed weak security in the country’s safest city. “
The unprecedented attack caused police “to literally fight for hours,” Contee said. “The training of the police does not anticipate or prepare for hours of hand-to-hand combat”.
The deaths of three U.S. Capitol Police officers in January – one to cancer before the riot, one to an injury sustained in the riot, and one to suicide after the riot – and the dismissal of Sund, who was being considered by much like a “cop cop” who took care of his officers, caused anguish in the police force of 2,000 people.
“The time has come when we need unity,” Andy Maybo, Capitol Police officer and former president of the Capitol Police Union, told ABC News. “Now is the time to come together, pointing fingers and blaming is not going to fix the problem.”
“I don’t think the fault lies with anyone – from the Capitol Police in Steve Sund to the last officer in the agency,” Maybo said.
The president said some of his officers suffered horrific injuries during the January 6 siege.
“I have officers who did not have helmets before the attack and suffered brain damage. One officer has two cracked ribs and two broken spinal discs,” Papathanasiou wrote. “One officer will lose his eye and another has been stabbed with a metal fence stake.”
Maybo pointed out that the Capitol Police mission – to protect members and staff – was carried out on January 6.
“The officers knew the property had to be put to life, so when people smashed windows or smashed doors, it didn’t matter as long as members of Congress, Senators, the Vice President and staff were protected.” , he explained.
Pittman also testified that on January 4, two days before the uprising, Sund asked the Capitol Police Council, which oversees the department, to “declare a state of emergency and allow a request support of the National Guard. “This request, said Pittman, was turned down.
Capitol architect and member of the Capitol Police Council, J. Brett Blanton, said in a statement Tuesday that his office had no record of such a request.
Even as the riot was going on, Contee testified that he was “stunned by the lukewarm response from the Department of the Army” and “shocked that the National Guard couldn’t – or wouldn’t” respond quickly to the Sund’s request to deploy forces on Capitol Hill in part because they “didn’t like the look of boots on the ground at Capitol.”
For officers like Maybo, Sund’s impeachment was too quick.
“Chief Sund should never have resigned because of this, the Speaker of the House should never have asked for his resignation, especially given the fact that he was begging for help, pleading for help from the National Guard, ”Maybo said.
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