Congressman Crow Shares Conversation About Attack On Capitol & Police Response
(CBS4) - On Sunday, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado released a summary of a phone conversation he and Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona had with the Secretary of the Army. The conversation covered the violent and deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and events leading up to it.
Sec'y Ryan McCarthy told Crow and Gallego U.S. Capitol Police did not request support from the Department of Defense before the protests on Wednesday. McCarthy says 340 D.C. National Guard personnel were deployed for traffic control at the request of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
In addition, law enforcement agencies say they were only expecting a few thousand people to gather.
It wasn't until between 1:34 p.m. and 1:49 p.m. on the day of the riots when Bowser and the chief of U.S. Capitol Police called the DOD for emergency support.
However, they were "unable to articulate what resources are needed and in what locations due to chaos," as stated in the call summary provided by Crow.
"Due to a lack of coordination and preparation, there was not a functioning operations center in the Pentagon to manage the Guard presence and direct additional resources, leaving senior DOD officials to manage the situation by tracking down previously unknown contacts of local law enforcement and making ad hoc calls in an office environment," the summary stated.
McCarthy went on to say there more than two dozen domestic terrorism cases now open in relation to the riots.
Law enforcement found molotov cocktails, explosive devices and rifles at the scene.
Crow says there's concern some of those involved in the attack are active duty and reserve military members. He asked for National Guard troops being assigned to the inauguration on Jan. 20 to undergo a CID review to make sure they are not "sympathetic to domestic terrorists."
Crow, Gallego and McCarthy also discussed security plans surrounding Inauguration Day, but did not release those details for security reasons.
