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Crowds broke through police barricades and ransacked the Capitol, vandalizing offices and prompting the evacuation of lawmakers just after 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday. At dusk, the building was still unsecured and a woman had been shot.
“Everything. Everything went wrong,” a Capitol Police officer said at the scene.
The law enforcement response that allowed a generally heavily secured federal monument to come under attack, with rioters entering through windows and entering lawmakers’ offices and gathering places, came from a Federal bureaucracy hesitant after initial assurances from DC and Capitol law enforcement agencies. Agencies that had law enforcement that could help Wednesday waited to be questioned.
“It was a mess. Nobody was communicating. Nobody knew what we were supposed to do there,” said a federal law enforcement officer who was sent to Capitol Hill.
The main law enforcement agency responsible for protecting the historic building was the Capitol Police. Agency spokespersons did not respond to multiple inquiries from CNN throughout the day.
Justice Department officials were responsible for coordinating federal agencies and the US National Guard response ahead of President Donald Trump’s rally near the Washington Monument. Some organizers have publicly said they plan to lead a “wild” march to Capitol Hill as the joint session of Congress meets to certify President-elect Joe Biden as the next president.
But agencies were waiting to be invited by other authorities to help – even as Trump’s election protest unfolded.
The U.S. Secret Service was the first federal agency deployed when the U.S. Capitol Police sought help from local and federal law enforcement, a USSS official told CNN. When Capitol Police called for help, the USSS sent an additional uniformed division and special agents to Capitol Hill to assist.
“Law enforcement did not understand the likelihood of this threat,” Jonathan Wackrow, a former USSS agent and CNN law enforcement analyst, said of the events of the day, although “no one should be surprised that this has been attempted,” said Trump’s attorney Rudy. Giuliani comments at the rally earlier today that it should be a “trial by fight”.
“There should have been a law enforcement wall,” Wackrow said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Alexei Woltornist said the agency was operating a “virtual situation room” to track communication between agencies, but “was not tracking any active threats.” US Customs and Border Protection, a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security, had prepared dozens of people if needed. Agents of the Federal Protection Service and the Secret Service were also sent to the Capitol. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is on a diplomatic trip to the Middle East this week, but is making arrangements to return. The Department of the Interior’s US Parks Police, which oversee the National Mall and other Capitol grounds, were also called in to help.
As for the Department of Justice, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen has deployed more than 300 agents and officers from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals Service, to help Capitol Police. But the Capitol police had already lost control.
Some of these deployments took place nearly an hour after crowds locked the Capitol out. Rosen did not release a public statement condemning the violence until about four hours after the riots began.
Capitol police overtaking
A longtime DC local police chief from the Metropolitan Police Department told CNN: “There is no denying that the Capitol Police were extremely overwhelmed today … I never saw the Capitol under siege like this. ”
“By the time the Capitol Police called for help, the crowd was already inside the building,” another federal law enforcement official said.
The Capitol Police report to congressional leaders and are separate from law enforcement that is part of the executive branch, the official said. This separation of powers would add to the painstaking bureaucratic negotiation. In another ditch, the Capitol Police operate separately from the DC Metropolitan Police, which began enforcing a city-wide curfew at 6 p.m. ET.
The first job of officers arriving on Wednesday afternoon was to protect lawmakers and staff who had been told to take shelter in offices. But the last-minute deployment, with protesters already inside the building, presented particular challenges.
FBI and ATF agents – whose normal job is to be investigators, not riot control – were dispatched to the Capitol to attempt to secure the building and ultimately to try to eliminate the protesters.
After criticism from Washington, DC, city officials over the brutal response to the Black Lives Matter summer protests, federal officials have had a noticeably lighter presence for the Trump rally.
Two federal law enforcement officials said Capitol Police assured justice officials they were ready for the rally, especially as the Capitol grounds are already barricaded in preparation for ceremonies. ‘inauguration in two weeks.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had also written to Rosen and other federal officials to demand that federal agencies not deploy a strong presence in the city, as they did over the summer, and to ensure that the Washington Metropolitan Police, as well as a small detachment of National Guard service members, were ready for the day’s protests.
“The District of Columbia government is not asking other federal law enforcement personnel,” Bowser wrote, “and discourages further deployment without immediate notification and consultation with MPD if such plans are underway. . “
That quickly changed when crowds flooded into the Capitol.
“I think you know the very important perimeters that we have established around the streets of DC, and we are here to support them and now to enter the building to make sure we have control and maintain control,” said Bowser on CNN Wednesday afternoon.
Police in the area respond but have waited for instructions
Nearby police departments, including Fairfax County in Virginia and Montgomery and Prince George Counties in Maryland, sent reinforcements of hundreds of officers as the afternoon wore on.
Prince George County forces were in town and still awaiting instructions from town police late in the afternoon, according to their spokesperson, although this was more response than the force had. been asked to provide at Black Lives Matters summer events, when they weren’t brought into town.
National guards were summoned from several states on Wednesday and started arriving, after domestic terrorism began. It was in stark contrast to how quickly Trump had called in the National Guard and other law enforcement under executive leadership to clear the park outside the White House of Black’s largely peaceful protesters. Lives Matter this summer. After this crowd was brutally disbursed, Trump walked through the park and took a photo outside a church.
“We’re going to need all the light of day, the opportunity to have oversight and scrutiny to find out exactly what happened,” DC Attorney General Karl Racine told CNN on Wednesday evening, adding that this should be compared to the use of force in Lafayette. Square seven months ago. “I have to think it was not unintentional. That it was neither reckless nor reckless” to leave the Capitol overwhelmed, Racine said.
A source told CNN on Wednesday night that Trump initially resisted the National Guard deployment, and Vice President Mike Pence urged the Joint Chiefs President to do so more quickly.
Inside the Capitol building after dark, officers were still going door-to-door, rummaging desk to desk, checking every closet to make sure the building was secure.
Several police officers were treated for injuries, just over a dozen people were arrested, homemade bombs found at the political party’s headquarters were safely detonated, and the murder of a woman on the grounds of the Capitol, died Wednesday afternoon, was under investigation.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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