The Capitol Police union responded to the new Senate report on the January 6 riot by calling on “senior leadership” who failed them to “stand aside.”
Capitol Police union chair Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement, “Front line Officers did their jobs that day performing heroically to ensure every single Member of Congress and their staff reached safety.”
He continued, “If our leaders had done their jobs, we would not have suffered more than 80 serious injuries within the USCP and an additional 70 injuries suffered by MPD officers.”
Papathanasiou shifted his focus to Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman.
“The time has come for those in senior leadership who failed us, to stand aside. It is not enough to scapegoat others,” he said.
Papathanasiou added, “Those most responsible, including Acting Chief Pittman who was in charge of intelligence prior to the insurrection, need to step aside for the good of the department. As the Senate report found, our leadership failed us and we paid a horrible price.”
According to Papathanasiou, the union is “rapidly approaching a crisis.”
“We literally will not have enough officers to accomplish our mission. It is that serious. The Support for Law Enforcement here at the USCP and nationwide must be top priority for our lawmakers,” he said.
The bipartisan Senate report outlined the security failures leading up to the insurrection but did not examine former President Donald Trump’s role in the riots, as IJR reported.
“The Committees’ investigation uncovered a number of intelligence and security failures leading up to and on January 6 that allowed for the breach of the Capitol,” the report reads.
It continues, “These breakdowns range from federal intelligence agencies failing to warn of a potential for violence to a lack of planning and preparation by USCP and law enforcement leadership.”
Responding to the report, the Capitol Police said it “agrees improvements are needed specific to intelligence analysis and dissemination,” adding, “At no point prior to the 6th did it receive actionable intelligence about a large-scale attack.”
One Capitol Police officer who is suing Trump over the riots spoke out about holding the former president accountable.
James Blassingame, a 17-year veteran of the Capitol Police, told PBS NewsHour’s Lisa Desjardins, “If the most powerful human being on the planet can — is not held accountable, can do whatever they want to do, what does that say about our democracy as a whole?”
