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WASHINGTON (AP) – Capitol Hill police knew armed extremists were ready to commit violence in the iconic building on January 6 and even provided police with assault rifles to protect lawmakers, the acting chief admitted on Wednesday . But the savage invasion of Capitol Hill was far worse than the police expected, leaving them unprepared to fight it.
A day earlier, his predecessor as leader said police were expecting a mob of enraged but more typical supporters of Donald Trump protesters. But acting chief Yogananda Pittman said intelligence gathered before the riot prompted the agency to take extraordinary measures, including special arming of officers, interception of radio frequencies used by invaders and the deployment of spies at the Ellipse rally where President Donald Trump sent his supporters to march. at the Capitol to “fight like hell”.
Pittman’s testimony, presented ahead of a House hearing Thursday, provides the most detailed account to date of U.S. Capitol Police intelligence and preparations before the insurgency when thousands of pro-Trump rioters invaded the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden as victory over Trump.
Three days earlier, on January 3, Capitol Police released an internal intelligence assessment warning that militia members, white supremacists, and other extremist groups were likely to participate, that protesters would be armed, and that it was possible that they would come to Capitol Hill to try to disrupt the vote, Pittman said.
“Based on the assessment, the Department understood that this protest would be different from previous protests by protesters with similar ideologies in November and December 2020,” Pittman said in his prepared remarks.
But at the same time, she argues that the police did not have enough intelligence to predict the violent insurgency that resulted in five deaths, including that of a Capitol police officer. They prepared for trouble, but not for an invasion.
“Although the Department’s January 3 Special Assessment predicted a significant likelihood of violence on Capitol grounds by extremist groups, it did not identify a specific credible threat indicating that thousands of US citizens would descend on the Capitol. American attacking police with the aim of breaking into the United States Capitol to harm members and prevent certification of Electoral College votes, ”Pittman said in his testimony.
Steven Sund, the former police chief who resigned after the riot, said on Tuesday the intelligence assessment warned white supremacists, far-right Proud Boys members and left-wing antifas should be in a crowd and could become violent.
“We foresaw the possibility of violence, the possibility of some people being armed, not the possibility of a coordinated military-style attack involving thousands of people on the Capitol,” said Sund.
The FBI also issued a warning to local law enforcement officials about online publications that a “war” was about to occur. But Pittman said that was still not enough to prepare for the mob that attacked the Capitol.
The officers were vastly outnumbered as thousands of rioters descended on the building, some of them wielding wooden planks, stun guns, bear bombs and metal pipes as they made their way through the windows and doors and crossed the Capitol. Officers were hit by barricades, pushed to the ground, trapped between doors, beaten and bloodied as members of Congress were evacuated and members of Congress staff cowered in offices.
Should the police have been better prepared?
With the amount of information the Capitol Police have, it is surprising that they haven’t taken additional steps to beef up security and protect their officers, said Tom Warrick, a former counterterrorism official. who served in the Obama administration.
“On January 6, the only strategic location in the entire National Capital Region of the United States that needed to be defended was the United States Capitol,” said Warrick, now a member of the Atlantic Council. “So it was really disappointing that people testified that ‘we didn’t know there was going to be violence’. When you are the target, you assume that things like this can happen even if you don’t have the information. “
Even without access to secure intelligence, there were months of warning signs in public view that the rioters would try to do what they did, said Bruce Hoffman, former commissioner of the Review Commission. September 11 and Senior Counterterrorism and Homeland Security Researcher for the Council on Foreign Relations.
A plot discovered by federal law enforcement to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was a major wake-up call, and many rioters have taken to social media to echo Trump’s calls to “stop the theft” and speculate on violence.
“Historically, the fault has always been to blame it on an intelligence failure when there can often be other reasons,” Hoffman said. “I think it was very obvious to anyone … that a showdown was going to take place.”
Pittman also says the department faced “internal challenges” in responding to the riot. Officers did not properly lock down the Capitol complex, even after an order was given over the radio to do so. She also says the officers did not understand when they were allowed to use lethal force and that the less than lethal weapons the officers had were not as effective as expected.
While Pittman testifies that sergeants and lieutenants were supposed to pass intelligence to the base of the ministry, many officers said they received little or no information or training on what to do. they would be confronted. Four officers told The Associated Press shortly after the riot that they had heard nothing from Sund, Pittman or other senior commanders as the building was violated. In many cases, officers have had to improvise or try to rescue threatened colleagues.
Pittman also faces internal pressure from her base, particularly after the Capitol Police Union cast a vote of no confidence against her last week. She is also to lead the department throughout the launch of several investigations into how law enforcement failed to protect the building.
Capitol Police are investigating the actions of 35 police officers on the day of the riot; six of those officers were suspended with pay, a police spokesperson said.
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Merchant reported from Houston. Associated Press editors Ben Fox and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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