Investigate (and Fire) The Capitol Police
The United States Capitol is one of the most secure locations on the planet ... well, until today
Publisher’s Riff
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Anyone with an amateur telescope and limited skill in forecasting saw this coming. With inauguration about two weeks away and an increasingly unstable outgoing president desperately grabbing for ways to stay holed up in the White House, the tension in the air was thick and Wednesday’s ratchet coup attempt was, sadly, predictable. That everyone except for the U.S. Capitol Police - and every law enforcement agency in the nation’s Capitol - could see it resulted in the first direct and successful attack on the United States Capitol since British troops burned it down in 1814. It was also the first time an enemy combatant Confederate flag found its way into the Capitol of the legitimate federal government. That didn’t even happen during the Civil War 150 years ago!
No one should be feeling sorry for the U.S. Capitol Police. Today’s events were completely preventable. It should have never happened. The Capitol should have been under full lock down before Wednesday in light of the Electoral College vote moment; all U.S. Capitol Grounds and streets under U.S. Capitol Police control should have been completely cut off for the week, and there should have been coordination to cut-off streets and barriers set up in tight coordination with, at least, the Metropolitan DC Police Department. Even though other federal law enforcement and military assets are, currently, not under Congressional or local District of Columbia control, assistance could have been called from neighboring jurisdictions and states to bolster the security presence if needed.
The Capitol is one of the most secure locations on the planet, a place where an enormous amount of very important and consequential global-scale business takes place and where leaders of government frequently visit to deliver speeches, testimony and highly classified information. It is an architectural marvel, but it is also built like a fortress to deter armed threats. That is supported by a highly trained, mobile and well-armed centurion force of more than 2,300 officers and civilian employees guarding 535 Members of Congress with a presence that spans across the U.S. Capitol grounds and throughout a massive periphery of Capitol Hill neighborhoods. It enjoys a budget of nearly half-a-billion dollars. That’s comparable to the resources of a small city police department.
What happened on Wednesday was a complete security failure and a failure of that police force. It’s current Executive Leadership, especially USCP Chief Steven A. Sund, should be fired and Capitol Police officers caught on tape opening up gates to White terrorist mobs should be fired and prosecuted. Not only was this a display of their inability to adequately defend, arguably, the most powerful democratic institution on Earth, but it revealed a startling lack of urgency and emergency preparedness. But, make no mistake about it: the U.S. Capitol Police knows how to get lethal when it needs to … just not when armed White terrorists are storming their Capitol steps.
Remember Miriam Carey
Once we revisit the tragic and heartbreaking case of Miriam Carey of 2013, the smoke around circumstances in 2021 begins to clear somewhat. Instead, most media outlets are conveniently skipping over her name, failing to recall it and engaging in comparisons between the Capitol Police failure to contain MAGA coup terrorists and hypothetical “what if Black Lives Matter did it” scenarios. This presumes the Capitol Police have never assualted or used lethal force on unarmed Black people before when they have.
Congress decided to pass on a much deeper investigation into why a Capitol Police officer and a Uniformed Secret Service officer both drew guns and fired a combined 18 rounds into Carey’s car after she erratically drove it from the White House to Capitol Hill during a high speed chase. Who knows why they made that decision: perhaps out of fear of Capitol Police reaction and their ability to carry out their duties (well, so much for that theory after Wednesday). Carey, 34, was fatally shot - but, her 18-month old daughter, who was also in the car, survived. The events leading up to Carey’s dramatic drive from Connecticut to D.C. are still unclear; what’s known is that Carey suffered from mental illness and that, other than the car she did keep driving into the direction of armed officers (crashing into one Capitol Police car), she was unarmed.
Why was it so easy for Capitol Police officers to shoot and kill one lone unarmed Black woman when they could have just simply disabled her vehicle … when it was so difficult for them to use armed force on hundreds of deranged and armed insurrectionists taking over the Capitol to stage a coup on Congress? That raggedy coup attempt has already resulted in the deaths of four people. Carey’s erratic, albeit dangerous, high speed chase resulted in no deaths except for her own … and an 18-month old baby who is traumatized for life.
Failure of Leadership … or Intentional?
Once the dust settles and the new Congress begins, along with a new president, Congressional Committees should be immediately activated to investigate this week’s security failure. Initial assessments will point to or explore how much USCP leadership failed to prepare and implement emergency measures.
It should’ve known better. Failure to properly secure the Capitol and allow armed insurrectionists into the Congressional campus and various offices was a disgrace to the memory of Capitol Police officers such as Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson who were fatally shot in 1998 by a lone gunmen who stormed the Capitol with a handgun. Since then, the Capitol Police was supposed to know not to underestimate any threat.
But, we’ll need an honest forensic account of this week - or days to follow - and of what’s going on inside the Capitol Police for a complete understanding. Was this truly a failure of Capitol Police leadership and management; or should we worry about white supremacists or people with MAGA leanings infiltrating the USCP? Recently, the Secret Service admitted it is now hurriedly reconfiguring security details for incoming President Biden and Vice President Harris over worries that there were pro-Trump sympathizers who could compromise their safety. This brings up the August 2020 report by the Brennan Center which analyzed infiltration of law enforcement by white extremists:
Obviously, only a tiny percentage of law enforcement officials are likely to be active members of white supremacist groups. But one doesn’t need access to secretive intelligence gathered in FBI terrorism investigations to find evidence of overt and explicit racism within law enforcement. Since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and elsewhere. Research organizations have uncovered hundreds of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials participating in racist, nativist, and sexist social media activity, which demonstrates that overt bias is far too common. These officers’ racist activities are often known within their departments, but only result in disciplinary action or termination if they trigger public scandals.
Congress should not accept the argument that Capitol Police, and law enforcement in the District of Columbia, were caught totally unprepared. They knew better than most what was coming - and if they didn’t, more reason to fire its Chief. We’ll need to find out soon what happened and ensure it never happens again or when it does happen, the response is swift and effective.