Police chief exiting Capitol accuses House and Senate security officials of hampering efforts to call National Guard: WaPo

Outgoing Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund accused House and Senate security officials of hampering multiple efforts before and during the Capitol Riots to call in the National Guard.

In good health told the Washington Post in an interview published Sunday night – his first since the events on Capitol Hill Wednesday – that he asked House and Senate security officials in the days leading up to when Congress was due to vote for the County Electoral College to allow him to ask the DC National Guard to be sure in case any troops are needed before the proPresident TrumpDonald Trump Kim Says North Korean Efforts To Focus On Bringing United States To Its Knee Pelosi Urges Democrats To Prepare To Return To DC This Week Amid Ken Klippenstein Impeachment Calls: ‘Ideological’ Blind Spot ” prevented the police from responding urgently to the riots on Capitol Hill READ MORE protests.

But the Capitol Police Chief, who was officially replaced as chef friday after his resignation, told the newspaper officials rejected the request.

Sund reported that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving said he was uncomfortable with the “optics” of declaring an emergency before the protests, and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that Sund informally ask the guard to be ready for last Wednesday.

“We knew it would be bigger,” Sund told the Post. “We looked at intelligence. We knew we would have big crowds, the potential for violent altercations. I had no indication that we were going to see a large crowd take over the Capitol.

The outgoing leader said his request before the riots was the first of six times his calls for help would be refused or postponed. When the pro-Trump crowd reached the Capitol at around 12:40 p.m., it took about 15 minutes for the western perimeter to be cleared, he said.

“If we had had the National Guard, we could have kept them at bay for longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,” he said.

Sund said around 2:26 p.m. he asked the Pentagon to provide a backup during a conference call. But a senior military official said he couldn’t recommend the secretary of the military Ryan mccarthyRyan McCarthyDefense Overnight: Pentagon Chief Condemns Capitol Riots | Speaker calls for Trump’s impeachment | Fence erected around the Capitol | Killed woman, Democratic Air Force veterinarian senator, worries about DC Guard security inauguration to erect 7-foot ‘non-scalable fence’ around Capitol Hill after violent riots authorize the deployment, saying, “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,” the Post reported, citing participants on the call.

The first National Guard personnel eventually arrived at 5:40 p.m., after four of five deaths in the riots had already occurred.

The Post could not reach Irving for comment, and Stenger declined to comment, telling a reporter, “I really don’t want to talk about this.” The two officials resigned after the riots under pressure from lawmakers.

Pentagon officials pointed out that Capitol Police did not ask the DC National Guard before the protest or request a contingency plan against riots involving the Guard.

“We are counting on Capitol Hill police and federal law enforcement to provide an assessment of the situation,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said last week, according to the Post. “And based on that assessment they had, they thought they had enough staff and didn’t apply.”

But Sund warns that “if they don’t associate their act with physical security, it will happen again”, potentially to the president-elect Joe bidenJoe BidenKim says North Korean efforts will focus on bringing the U.S. to its knees Amazon suspends Talk about web hosting service Pelosi urges Democrats to prepare to return to DC this week amid impeachment calls MOREinauguration.