A U.S. Capitol Police union accused leadership of an “inexcusable” failure to relay pertinent information about the Jan. 6 riot, which led to numerous injuries and five deaths, including one Capitol Police officer.
Top brass within the department, including acting Chief Yogananda Pittman, blamed uniformed officers for falling short of their “own high standards” during the unrest at the Capitol, which saw at least five deaths and over 140 officers injured from multiple agencies.
“On January 6th, in the face of a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists determined to stop the certification of Electoral College votes, the Department failed to meet its own high standards as well as yours,” she said before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Gus Papathanasiou, who called Pittman’s statements before Congress a “startling admission,” said bosses in the department were instead to be blamed for the violence due to inability to disseminate tips about a “strong potential for violence.”
“The fact they did not relay this information to the officers on duty prior to the insurrection is inexcusable,” Papathanasiou said in a scathing letter. “The officers are angry and I don’t blame them. The entire executive team failed us and they must be held accountable. Their inaction cost lives.”
“Acting Chief Pittman cites radio communications as a problem during the riots, but the real communications breakdown was silence from our leadership, before the insurrection and while it was underway,” he wrote. “They failed to share key intelligence with officers in advance, they failed to prepare adequately, they failed to equip our officers with a plan and on that very day, they failed to lead.”
Papathanasiou added that top brass did not provide helmets and other protective equipment to some law enforcement personnel prior to the unrest, which resulted in officers sustaining brain injuries. One police officer has “two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs,” another is set “to lose his eye,” and a third was skewered with “a metal fence stake,” he said.
“Our union has long advocated for more training, more staff and better equipment, only to be repeatedly ignored by our leadership,” the union boss said. “Yet, Acting Chief Pittman now blames these glaring inadequacies for contributing to the failure to protect the Capitol on January 6th.”
In the letter, Papathanasiou lamented the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after being struck with a fire extinguisher during the chaos, and mourned the death by suicide of Howard Liebengood days after the unrest. A third police officer, Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department, killed himself on an unspecified date following the insurrection on Capitol Hill.
“Our officers need leadership they can trust,” Papathanasiou said.
