Two days before Congress was set to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was growing increasingly worried about the size of the pro-Trump crowds expected to stream into Washington in protest.
To be on the safe side, Sund asked House and Senate security officials for permission to request that the D.C. National Guard be placed on standby in case he needed quick backup.
But, Sund said Sunday, they turned him down.
In his first interview since pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, Sund, who has since resigned his post, said his supervisors were reluctant to take formal steps to put the Guard on call even as police intelligence suggested that the crowd President Trump had invited to Washington to protest his defeat probably would be much larger than earlier demonstrations.
House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he wasn’t comfortable with the “optics” of formally declaring an emergency ahead of the demonstration, Sund said. Meanwhile, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger suggested that Sund should informally seek out his Guard contacts, asking them to “lean forward” and be on alert in case Capitol Police needed their help.
Inside the Capitol siege: How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control
Irving could not be reached for comment. A cellphone number listed in his name has not accepted messages since Wednesday. Messages left at a residence he owns in Nevada were not immediately returned, and there was no answer Sunday evening at a Watergate apartment listed in his name. A neighbor said he had recently moved out.
Stenger declined Sunday to comment when a reporter visited his Virginia home. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
It was the first of six times Sund’s request for help was rejected or delayed, he said. Two days later on Wednesday afternoon, his forces already in the midst of crisis, Sund said he pleaded for help five more times as a scene far more dire than he had ever imagined unfolded on the historic Capitol grounds.
An army of 8,000 pro-Trump demonstrators streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue after hearing Trump speak near the White House. Sund’s outer perimeter on the Capitol’s west side was breached within 15 minutes. With 1,400 Capitol Police officers on duty, his forces were quickly overrun.
“If we would have had the National Guard we could have held them at bay longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,” he said.
Just before 2 p.m., the pro-Trump mob entered the Capitol, sending lawmakers and staff scrambling for safety. D.C. police had quickly dispatched hundreds of officers to the scene. But it wasn’t enough. At 2:26 p.m., Sund said, he joined a conference call to the Pentagon to plead for additional backup.
“I am making an urgent, urgent immediate request for National Guard assistance,” Sund recalled saying. “I have got to get boots on the ground.”
On the call were several officials from the D.C. government, as well as officials from the Pentagon, including Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff. The D.C. contingent was flabbergasted to hear Piatt say that he could not recommend that his boss, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, approve the request.
“I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,” Piatt said, according to Sund and others on the call.
Again and again, Sund said, “The situation is dire,” recalled John Falcicchio, the chief of staff for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser.
“Literally, this guy is on the phone, I mean, crying out for help. It’s burned in my memories.”
Pentagon officials have emphasized that the Capitol Police did not ask for D.C. Guard backup ahead of the event or request to put a riot contingency plan in place with guardsmen at the ready, and then made an urgent request as rioters were about to breach the building, even though the Guard isn’t set up to be a quick-reaction force like the police.
“We rely on Capitol Police and federal law enforcement to provide an assessment of the situation,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said during a news conference last week. “And based on that assessment that they had, they believed they had sufficient personnel and did not make a request.”
Despite Sund’s pleas, the first National Guard personnel didn’t arrive at the Capitol until 5:40 p.m. — after four people had died and the worst was long over.
Sund, 55, offered his resignation the next day, telling friends he felt he had let his officers down. Many lawmakers, infuriated by the breach and angry that they had been unable to reach Sund at the height of the crisis, were only too happy to accept it.
Under pressure from lawmakers, Stenger and Irving also resigned.
In a wide-ranging interview, Sund sought to defend his officers, who, he said, had fought valiantly. And with threats of violence looming ahead of Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, he said he remains worried.
“My concern is if they don’t get their act together with physical security, it’s going to happen again,” he said.
As he prepared for last week’s demonstrations, Sund drew on decades of experience. Hired as chief in 2019, two years after joining the Capitol Police, he worked for 23 years on the D.C. police force, leaving as commander of the Special Operations Division. Widely respected in the District and among leaders of U.S. Secret Service and Park Police, he had helped to run 12 national security events, including Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration. He also served as incident commander during the 2013 Navy Yard shooting.
Last Monday, Sund said, he began to worry about the Jan. 6 demonstration.
“We knew it would be bigger,” Sund said. “We looked at the intelligence. We knew we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent altercations. I had nothing indicating we would have a large mob seize the Capitol.”
Sure, there were claims that alt-right instigators had discussed storming the building and targeting lawmakers. But Sund said such threats had surfaced in the past.
“You might see rhetoric on social media. We had seen that many times before,” he said. “People say a lot of things online.”
Still, he decided to call Irving and Stenger to ask for permission to request that the National Guard be put on emergency standby. Irving didn’t like the idea, Sund said; he said it would look bad because it would communicate that they presumed an emergency. He said he’d have to ask House leaders.
On the way home that evening, Sund did as Stenger suggested, calling Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the head of the 1,000-member D.C. National Guard, to tell him that he might call on him for help. “If we can get you leaning forward,” Sund said, “how long do you think it would take to get us assistance?”
Walker said he thought he could send 125 personnel fairly quickly. Over the weekend, Sund had also conferred with D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III, who also had offered to lend a hand if trouble arose.
On Tuesday, Sund said he briefed Irving and Stenger, who said that backup seemed sufficient.
Just before noon Wednesday, Sund was monitoring Trump’s speech to the crowd on the Ellipse when he was called away. There were reports of two pipe bombs near the Capitol grounds. So Sund didn’t hear the president call on protesters to “fight” against lawmakers preparing to confirm Biden’s victory. Nor did he hear Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, urging the crowd to engage in “trial by combat,” an eerie reference to battles to the death in the series, “Game of Thrones.” Sund said he now suspects that the pipe bombs were an intentional effort to draw officers away from the Capitol perimeter.
Sund blamed Trump for putting his officers at risk, saying “the crowd left that rally and had been incited by some of the words the president said.” Sund said he fears what may come next.
On Sunday, the Capitol’s rolling green lawn was ringed by high black fencing and patrolled by personnel in green camouflage keeping the public at bay.
“This is the people’s house. Congress members have always prided themselves on having an open campus,” Sund said. But now, “I’m not sure that will continue to be defensible.”