PM Show Hr 2 | Speaking with Former DC Police Chief Steven Sund on What He Saw on Jan. 6

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's that time, time, Time, Time, Luck and Load film
Michael Veri Show is on the air, even unders our
guests as a former Capital City Police chief, a position
he held on January sixth, twenty twenty one. I wanted

(00:23):
to make the point with his background. This guy's not
a lightweight. He's got a BS, a MS from Johns
Hopkins University, a pretty high brow, rigorous academic background. He
has an MA and homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School.
This guy is thoughtful about strategy and operations and logistics
in law enforcement. It's what he's devoted his life to.

(00:47):
This isn't somebody who rolls through the ranks because they
checked the right box that they weren't a white male.
He is, in fact a white male. This is a
guy who, by all accounts, and I think he has demonstrated,
cares deeply about law and order and security and preserving
the peace. And that's to be respected. So now we
get to January sixth. I know you've told this story

(01:09):
because I've seen you tell this story. I wish i'd
let you tell your story in public, but let's walk through.
I won't interrupt you. Why don't you tell the story
as you know it of January sixth, I.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Will I think your listeners will definitely be surprised about
what they're about to hear because a lot of people
will hear about, you know, Trump offering National Guard and
what happened to the Nationalard and stuff like this. You're
going to hear the truth. This truth has been upheld
by congressional hearings. I come with the facts. I'm thirty
years law enforcement. I'm not going to say something that
I can't back up. So let's take you back to
the Sunday before January sixth, January third, it was the

(01:42):
first day of the one hundred and seventeenth Congress, regardless
if it falls on a weekend, and January third is
always going to be the first day of a new Congress.
When it comes in a session, we do all the
swearing ends of the members of Congress. So it's a
big day up on Capitol Hill. I had been kind
of watching, you know, the crowd sides that were coming in.
In mind you the intelligence I was getting in the
intelligence and a whole other issue of what the intelligence

(02:04):
I was getting didn't say anything about any type of
coordinated attack at the capital, any threat to the federal billings,
or to the Capital, or to members of Congress, nothing
like that. I was just concerned about the size of
the crowd and the number of officers I had to
put on my perimeter. I had four foot high bike
rack that was going to surround the Capitol, which is
a sizeable area. I only had two hundred and seventy

(02:26):
three officers to put on that perimeter, and that included
response officers for civil disobedience. So it wasn't a whole
lot of officers. Because we had a joint session of
excuse me, a joint session of Congress, it took a
lot of my personnel inside of the building. So i'd
gone over to the Senate. The House Sergeant Arms. I'm
acquired by my federal law is another interesting thing. If
I want to bring in any assistance for my officers,

(02:48):
any federal assistance, whether it's being National Guard, any federal assistance,
I have to buy law. It's to us nineteen seventy
get permission from the Capitol Police Board. So Sunday morning,
nine thirty five, I went over to see the House
Sergeant Arms. Guy by the name of Paul Irving, who
I knew. He carried most of the weight. He was
the big, heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened to him

(03:08):
on the Capitol police board. I know this would be
a sensitive topic for him, but I went over to
ask for national Guard support specifically, just for the premiter
unarmed national Guard support. I wasn't asking for farm nation
Guard support at that time.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
He didn't approve it.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
He didn't aprove it specifically because he said he didn't
like the optics of the national Guards standing a line
with the Capitol in the background. And I think that
was because he felt is his boss, his main boss,
Speaker Pelosi would have gotten upset about it. And he
also said the intelligence didn't support it. Well, yeah, I
understand the intelligen didn't support it, but I still worried
about the size of the crowds, and I told him,
you know that I'm worried about the side of the

(03:43):
crowds and I'd like to have some resources on the
Premier with my officers. Again, he at that point, can.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
You give us a time from again? When was this conversation?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Roughly, the conversation was on Monday, January third, three days
before January sixth.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, so plenty of time to muster troops if you
need them.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Plenty of times the muster mustard troops we've we've used,
you know, in my in my history with d C
Police and even with with Capitol Police, who even National Guard,
And there's plenty of time. But it gets it gets
even better because I'm going to tell you how we
knew the Nation Guard was prepared. So he refers me
over to Mike Snayer, who's now the chairman of the
Capitol Police Board and he became the chairman on that day.

(04:23):
I went over to his office. Mike Snaer was and
and I came back later on, right a little bit
after eleven. He's in the office and I can tell
he's already been given heads up. I'm coming over to
ask for National Guard. When I asked for National Board support,
he won't approve it. Again, he's concerned. Later on he
in April that after January sixth, I finally asked me
and said he do you know I was coming over,
said Irvi and told him, but anyway, he wouldn't. He

(04:44):
wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, watch call. Do
you know anybody at the DC National Guard if we
need their assistance? How quickly could they get here? And
I know the commanding General of the DC National Guard,
William Walker. General Walker. I told I can call General Walker,
but that's still not going to help us. We have,
you know, issues on the premier. But he said, I
got a run out. He's going to the swearing in
of members of Congress, and he said, that's that's the

(05:06):
best we're going to do. He wouldn't approve it, so
he leaves out. I go back to my office later
on that day, just the hert time.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Later, I get back.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
One of my deput chief's approaches me and says, we
received a call from Carol Corman. She's the program manager
for the Defense Support for Civil Authorities, which is the
National Guard, and coming to support you know, civil authorities
law enforcement it's needed. She was calling to ask if
we were going to be requesting the National Guard for
January six Now I had just been denied twice my
request for the use of the National Guard on January sixth,

(05:35):
and by the law, I had to tell him to
tell her no, we aren't. I've dealt with her before
because I'd been denied, so coming into January sixth, I
don't have that Pentagon had offered National Guard. I had
to turn it down. I'd been denied twice by the
House and Senate Sergeant Arms. So coming into January sixth,
twelve fifty eight, in the command center, we're working with

(05:55):
the pipe bomb that we started dealing with down at
the Republican Nation from Committee, which is just a couple
of blocks south of the US Capital.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
We had been alerted of a pipe bomb.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I want to say, right around twelve forty one pm,
we're dealing with that. I mean, my watchman are showing
me some pictures of the pipe bomb. When somebody says
we have a large crowd approaching our west front, I
look up, but we have cameras. There's two roadways coming
up toward the west front, right next to the reflecting Pool,
Pennsylvania Avenue, Maryland Avenue, coming up to two circles. I

(06:26):
see a couple of hundred people at each of the
circles approaching our fence line, and some of the people
in the group got very confrontational and physical with the
officers very quickly. I've handled lots of protests. I've seen
lots of you know, where the marchers come up to
the line, the gate and we'll usually have ten fifteen
minutes of back and forth where they're yelling, and so
I got before he gets to this point. This was

(06:46):
a matter of a matter of minutes before they started
pulling out the gate and swinging at my officers. And
again this was a core group of people that were
in the in the crowd. So I look down, that's
twelve fifty three, see what's going on. I, you know,
having come from DC Police, I reach over to decent
Police and say, hey, if you guys get some resources,
send them our way. And then at twelve fifty eight,

(07:07):
I called the Senate Star of the I'm sorry the
House stars and arms Paul Irving to request permission. I'm
still required by law to request permission even in an emergency.
Now Congress has since changed that law December of twenty
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling
resources that having to go to this. But anyway, they say,
admitted the failure. So twelve fifty eight, I call Paul Irving.
It took eleven calls.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Let me back up.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
I start following myself. My adrenaline start pumping when I'm
talking about this. So when I first called him, I
said it's bad on the West Front. My officers are
getting overrun. I need federal resources, and now I need
permission to call them the National Art. He says to me, quote,
let me run this up the chain and I'll be
right back to you. So he and he has a
liaison officer sitting right behind me watching the same thing

(07:51):
I'm seeing on my screens. I get off the phone.
I'm dumbfounded. I'm seeing again. My officer is now backing
up as the crowd's getting starting to move on the Capitol.
So I called Mike Stinger, the Senate surgeon arms call
him immediately and say, hey, you know we're getting over
run again.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
He has the eas I'm sitting right by me. I
need a media permission to bring in the National Guard.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
He said, what did Paul Irving tell you.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
That he's going to run it up the chain? I
mean he's going to run it.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Speak a closi.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
You can get right back to me, he said, let's
wait to hear from Paul Irving. I made eleven more
phone calls to the two of them seventy one minutes
before I.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Finally got approval at two nine pm. And Michael Berry.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
Joke the good Chief of the Capitol Police on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen sond He's our guest telling
his story.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
And we were now in the middle of the afternoon.
You've waited over an hour, You've made a number of calls.
The situation is turning in your estimation. Are the people
who are beginning to approach the capital do you suspect

(09:00):
that any of those individuals are federal plants? Do you
suspect that they're paid activists? Do you think they're just
people who showed up or frustrated? Do you have a
sense of that?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on it.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be important
to know.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
So at the time, all I was thinking about it
we get my officers some assistants.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Uh. They were they were getting rear ends handed to them. Uh.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
And I need to get them some assistants real quick.
And I was just dumbfounded as repeatedly denials and delays
I was getting. You know, looking back on it, you
know I keep hearing I try and you know.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Really stick to it.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Be a person of the facts. If I know facts,
I'm going to pass them on. You know, I hear
a lot about you know, there could have been tief
in the in the crowd. There could have been you know,
different people in the crowd very well could be if
I if I had facts that I'd absolutely pass that,
pass that on to you. Looking at some of the videos,
you see a lot of people all wearing you know,
it looks like brand new acquitting, brand new hats, flag
stuff like that. Who knows who is what that that

(10:03):
could tell you, But I will tell you, you know, I've
suspected you know, all along, and it wouldn't be unusual
front event in Washington. See when you talk about federal agents,
whether it's a Fourth July celebration, a state funeral, a
uh cherry Boston parade paper even something like that. We
we still have, you know, put together some of these
plain closed teams that oftentimes are made up of you know,

(10:26):
people from the Washington Field Office, the FBI, Secret Service,
some of the Joint Terrorist Passforce members just to go
out there and keep an eye look for any issues
or if we get a suspicious package, you can you know,
respond to the suspecial package quickly to start making assessments,
So it wouldn't I wouldn't have been surprised to think, okay,
we did some some plain closed assets.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
In the in the crowd. But you know, as I
began to do.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
My research, and you know, I got I literally got
stripped out of my office the very next day and
I hopefully we have time to get to that. And
I literally sat at home and I had people come
out of the woodwork. I had whistle blowers comounts start
information to me and found out that the FBI had
been receiving information just prior to January sixth that indicated
there's several what they considered domestic terrorists that were most

(11:11):
likely planning to come to Washington, d C.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
For the event.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Then as we got closer, the numbers seem to seem
to get higher. So you know, and I found this
in the aftermat that at one point they were tracking
nineteen people that were on their domestic terrorists list as
coming to planning on coming to Washingt d C. Now,
I can tell you this, they're not tracking them with.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Just nobody. They're going to be tracking them with agents.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
If they think somebody comes in, they know they have
a flight coming in or something like that, they're going
to be.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Putting eyes on these people.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
So it wouldn't you know, if we're we have that
many people that they suspect our domestic terrorists, I suspect
you're going to have significant resource in the crowd watching them.
So that's where I based my opinion on. Now, Christopher
Ray has come out and said that there was a
number of what they call confidential human sources chs is
in the crowd. Some people have said hs is were

(12:00):
the ones watching the uh uh, their domestic terrorist targets.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
I don't buy that.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
That's not what I consider the police work, because you
can only trust the CHS so much. But that's where
I always base my opinion on that. You know what,
I would have been surprised and there's playing closed ass
in the growd. But when you start hearing about you know,
there's some of these people that are out there that
are pushing them to get into the capital and move
on the capitol. H I find that very very concerning
and if and if proven be true, that's you know,

(12:26):
that's definitely not what they're supposed to be doing. And
that is you know, contrary to the oath of oath
they take.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
I know, you choose your words carefully, not out of cowardice,
but out of caution. Is it outside the realm that
that could be the case, outside the realm that some
people could.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Be pushing pushing the group.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Well, when you act and you think about, why why
am I denying repeatedly in advance? Why am I denying
while you know, just to blake that while my officers
are under attack, And then I run into problems with
the with the Pentagon. Finally, once I do get approval
approving my request, and now we find out that there's
probably some influence coming from General Millie on on that

(13:14):
the influence on from General Milly onto Acting Secretary Defense
Christopher Miller, that caused him to place additional restrictions on
the National Bard that no one knew about. When you
start looking at that, you're like, yeah, this really, you know,
it could make a really interesting conspiracy theory novel when
you look at what was going on in.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
That aspect, and you know, really, who who is you?

Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know getting the most traction out of the whole
January sixth initiative. You know, we haven't been able to
identify the pipe bomber yet.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Which is.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I find that very interesting, but you know, I mean,
you know, your listeners probably would be surprised. And when
I activated mutual aid, the New Jersey State Police made
it before the DC National Guard coming down to the
DC Nation Guard had one hundred and fifty five troops
with an eyesight of Capital and they didn't get the
until five forty pm at night, once all the fighting

(14:03):
was over. And remember I told you well when I
called when I finally got in touch with the Pentagon,
the Pentagon wanted me on a conference call. This was
brought on two thirty four pm. They wanted me on
a conference call to then find out why I'm requesting
National Guard. I think that would have been fairly self
evident with anybody watching this on TV. But I'm on
the phone with the guy mat by the name of

(14:24):
Lieutenant General Walter Pyat, also on the phone with me
as mayor bounser, Chief of Police for the DC, Plice
for Robert Conti, the Director of Emergency Manageer for DC,
a number of other people, including a guy that at
one point was the Army's Acting General Council, Colonel Earl Matthews.
He has since come out as a whistleblower on my

(14:45):
behalf and I told him, I said, I need a
National Guard support immediately. This is a life and death situation.
They've now gotten into the Capitol. We're battling to keep
him out of the capital. And he tells me the
exact same thing. Paul Irving told me, I don't like
the optic of the National Guard standing in line with
capital in the background. I was dumb found I'm hearing
the exact same thing. So you know, I'm wondering, is

(15:05):
there some talking points behind us? I repeatedly, I'm baging.
I'm almost at tears, and the marriage Fountain said this.
I was almost at tears, begging him to send me resources,
and kept tearing this over and over, and he said
his recommendations to that that I am my request. That
was his first response. Uh, And then I kept pleading
with him. He said, well, I'm going to run this
up the chain, and that's when we had the shooting

(15:26):
of action. Bab it and I had to get on
the phone.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's uh, it's so frustrating, man. I think in many ways,
I look at what's happened in your career. I think
of how many officers that day never recovered, and we
know that some took their own lives. I think how
many people who went to the Capitol, in my suspicion,

(15:51):
who did little or nothing and relatively speaking, and ended
up in prison. I just think of this as horrible,
as Richard Nixon or as Gerald Ford referred to the
next administration. It feels like a long national nightmare, and
it's it's extremely, extremely disturbing. And I believe you don't
have to and I'm not saying you do or don't.

(16:12):
I believe that the various forces were at work here
and a lot of good people doing their jobs, and
a lot of people, patriots got caught up in it
and were terribly, terribly affected by you mentioned earlier you
made reference to, and I hope we'll have time to
get to that. Who will make time in the next segment.
Stephen Sundays, I guess he was a Capital City police

(16:33):
chief on January the Capitol police chief on January sixth,
twenty one, Jackie, you're here, jack a crash that killed
Congresswoman jack Uell Or.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
Here.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Stephen Sundays, I guess he was the police chief of
the Capital Police on January sixth of twenty twenty one,
that fateful day, and you made reference chief to getting
pulled into an office. I wasn't sure exactly, but you said,
I hope we'll have time to talk about that. And
I made a little scribble note to go back to
that so that I do make time for you. So
go ahead to the floor.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Is yours?

Speaker 2 (17:11):
I appreciate it. So you know, here we are January
January sixth. We get everybody back back in the session.
The National Guard finally shows up at five point forty pm.
We have to swear them in as special police officers.
They once they get off their bus, the fighting is over.
You know, We've We've got everything done. Everything is secured.
I brought in seventeen law enforcement agencies, seventeen hundred police officers.

(17:35):
That's all taken care of. What if they do they
line up with all their riot gear, take a picture
with the Capitol in the background and put it.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
On Military Time magazine. I thought you'd just get a
kick out of that. When the Pentagon had said they
were so concerned.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
About the optics, and to have that bed the optics
that they took away from it, that was interesting. So
the next day we're briefing January seventh. The morning of
January seventh, we're briefing members of Congress. Now now mind you,
that evening I talked to Speaker Pelosi three times. First
time brought around five thirty five. I'd gone over to

(18:05):
brief Vice President Pence. We had him at a secure
location on Capitol Hill. He had been calling me a
couple of times, asked me to come over and brief him.
I couldn't leave because you know, I had to be
up to the Man Center getting things under control. But
once we could, I went over to brief him. When
I briefed him of when we can get them back
in a session, he got Speaker Pelosi on a call.
We pretty sure. And this has now all come out.

(18:25):
You see the film footage that comes out from her
daughter that was with her Speaker Pelosi, which he's saying,
I take responsibility. But and you'll see some of this
that I talked about. And there's a video of me
with Pence and her getting a call from Pence, and
that's one of the calls. So I talked to him.
I talked her three times. So the next day we're
briefing my oversight, we're briefing members of Congress about you

(18:47):
know what the plan is moving forward with, the plan
is with National Guard support. When I get a call
that Speaker Pelosi, this is right on one o'clock in the afternoon,
is getting ready to go on national TV and call
for my resignation. I said, okay. My general counsel and
my chief administrative officers you know, said hey, let's go
in your office. We'll watch it there. Gave my wife

(19:08):
a little heads up, went in, watched it and knows
about a twenty minute press conference and it's on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
You can watch.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
It's the very end of the press conference. It's a
planning question. Somebody asked, you know, what are you gona
do about security figures up on Capitol Hill. She says,
that's a great question. We're going to do an after
action study, which would have been smart if she'd just
stopped there. But then she calls me out by name
and says, I'm calling for the resignation of Chief's son.
There was a failure of leadership at the top, and

(19:33):
you know he has to go.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
He failed.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
I'm trying to think exactly what she said, but you
could tell she studies over her voice for a little bit.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Now, mind you.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
I had tried to get National Guard in advance on
January third and repeatedly on January sixth, have been denied
by her sergeant at arms specifically.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
And then she goes on.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
National TV says there's a failure of leadership at the
top of the Capitol. Police calls me out by name,
then tells the American public and I haven't even called
her since this curg which is a lie.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Uh, and then calls.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
From my resignation. You know, I sat and talked to
my wife. I was heading stuff for thirty six hours.
I was shell shocked. I said, you know, fine, I
submitted my my letter of resignation with a three week
transition period in the very that The very next morning,
I got a call saying you're immediately.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
I was cut off from all my computer access uh
and was to move out of my office immediately. So
over that weekend, I actually was moving everything at my
office and has never stepped back and foot in that
office again. Nobody has talked to me.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Uh, well, very little. I had to go down for.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
A couple of conferences, but yeah, it wasn't didn't get
access to any investigation, uh, nothing like that.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
So so I agree there was there was a number.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Of key people in that crowd that I think were problematic,
But I think a lot of those people in that
crowd were what I call strap hangers, people that just
kind of followed along, looked at the crowd, went in,
didn't do anything, didn't assault the officers at all. You
know that, I think, you know, it's a shame how
some of these people got treated. I've been in policing
for a long time. I've never seen that type of

(21:08):
levels of sentencing handed down, even for APO assault on
police officer. So I was kind of surprised by that.
But you know, to be to be stripped away from
an agency I loved, and when I try to prevent that.
Now Congress has come out. If you look at some
of the recent hearings and reports, Tigress has said, if
the Sergeant at Arms had approved Sun's request for dashboard

(21:28):
support on January third, chances are the capital have never
been breached. And then in December seventeenth, twenty twenty four,
under Chairman Very Louder Route their last report that they
did now that I think the committee's coming back again.
Their last report exonerates me by name, but I'm still
fighting to get the retirement. My retirement was stripped all

(21:50):
you know, all benefits, everything like that. It was immediately stripped.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah I was. I was only
a few months away from being totally totally vested. And
I do believe if the facts have been known, I.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
May even still be there today. Who knows, but yeah,
they so they exonerated me December seventeenth, twenty twenty four.
I'm one of maybe a handful of people in history
that Congress has exonerated by name, which is which is interesting.
But I'm still working with the committee, still working with
Chairman Laudermilk, you know, working to get some executive branch
support to have them look at my case. Didn't see

(22:26):
about you know, returning whatever benefits may be.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Strict for me.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
How many years in law enforcement?

Speaker 2 (22:35):
ID total of thirty years in law enforcement. I did
retire from DC Police. I did get my retirement from
DC Police. But for me, it's now just a it's
not the federal retirement, it's not anything big. But for me,
it's the principle. It is the fact that you know,
I tried to stop this. I tried to stop it repeatedly,
was repeatedly denied, and this all you know I've got.

(22:56):
I've turned over all my phone records, my transcripts, my emails,
they have everything. And I just find that that interesting
that you know I'm the one targeted, but you know,
we'll fight.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
I know.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
The truth is, the truth is coming out, and as
more the truth comes out, the better it looks for me.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Lives are destroyed in this manner. You're not going to
allow your life to be destroyed because you are a
survivor and a prevailer, but lesser men would be. And
I think it's very important to see, you know, chiefs Son,
I always counsel doing what I do. I am approached
with a lot of what will be called conspiracy theories,

(23:34):
and that is, you know, sometimes slapping a pejorative tag
on a on a theory that might very well have
otherwise been legitimate. So I have come to learn and
I counsel this often. You have to be careful that
you don't believe every conspiracy theory that is offered, just

(23:55):
because you're prone to believing and inclined and biased and
prejudice towards conspiracy theories. However, the parallel to that is
you have to be careful if you refuse to believe
anything called a conspiracy theory, or you'll end up eighteen
shots into Joe Biden's protocol and Fauci's laughing at your funeral.

(24:15):
So I think there is somewhere in between where you
have a more temperate, measured approach to news of the day.
But several of the things that you describe strike me
as so outside the chain of command, so outside traditional
policing principles, particularly as it relates to a highly political environment.

(24:38):
And I realize that you know much more and could
say much more damning things, and I respect the fact
that you're holding that tight that would be in your defense.
But these are things that I think every American needs
to know, and that the Liz Cheney Show trial and
all of that which they didn't allow you to speak to,

(24:58):
you know, I consider this to be a major calamity,
a major disaster in American life that that needs to
be explored to extremely great extent. Chief, if you can
hold with me for one more segment.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
I have a couple.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Of course, they remain scared the death of you, and
they remain scared to death of Trump. Michael Barry Show
You're not going anywhere even if Trump does, You're not.
Stephen Sunned is our guest, s U ind you'd like
to look him up. He's he's written a book about
all this. We'll talk about that in just a moment.
He has giving an interview. Now. He's the former police

(25:38):
chief of the Capitol Police On January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Nancy Pelosi went after him and basically destroyed his career.
As it were, Chief sound you. You had a lot
of guys, how big is the Capitol Police Force?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Capitol Police Force? When when I was there, a lot
of people are kind of surprised by It's one nine
hundred and sixty three officers with a budget of about
four hundred and sixty three million dollars. It comes out
to me about the twenty fifth apartment in the country.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
My sons both I have a son who's a senior
in high school and a son who's now a sophomore
in college, and they interned for Congressman this summer. And
I had worked for law firm in d C thirty
years ago, so it was fun for me and my
wife to get to go back and spend some time
there and meet them for lunch and walk around the
capitol and do the tours and all that. We hadn't
done that in a long time. And I mean it's significant.

(26:32):
People don't realize it is. As you said, it would
be about the twenty fifth largest police force in the country,
and there are real security concerns and you know, somebody
could argue that's too many or whatever else there are.
It's a spread out area. You have kind of the boulevards,
the way that the boulevards, the esplanade style, big grand

(26:53):
European boulevard that's hard to police. There's a lot that
goes into this. But I want to go back to
January sixth and the officers there. There were officers who
died and one the claim was he was hit by
blunt force object. And my understanding is whether he was
or he wasn't. His family said he did not die

(27:13):
from blunt force trauma. But that you had a number
of officers who committed suicide. They took their own life.
Their lives were not taken by the protesters. Can you
speak to that.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Absolutely, You've got again a lot of different questions there.
So technically, there was one officer whose death was a.
They went back and said it's what they call immediately
a line of duty death. That was officer Brian sick Nick.
He was one of the officers that was in Waltson
of the fighting on the West Front. He had been
sprayed with purper spray. At one point, the media had

(27:46):
said he had been hit with the fire extinguisher, which
didn't turn out to be true. I actually know the
DC police officer that I got hit by that but
ended up later on that night at about probably close
to ten o'clock, maybe between nine and ten, was walking
with a group of officers. We now have the Capital
under control. We've got a bunch officers on the perimeter,

(28:07):
insides under control. He's now walking with a couple of
Capitol Police officers and a Virginia State trooper who happens
to be a medic to go get a p T.
He's walking along and he just drops and the medic
immediately went to work on him. And I've had a
chance to talk to the medic. He said, you know,
as soon as he hit the ground, there was like,
you know, he was completely unconscious. He went over to

(28:28):
a GW hospital where they identified that he had what
appeared to be some type of a neurological issue at
the base of his brain stem within no brain activity,
and then ultimately passed away the very next day. That's
the case I think you're talking about. The autopsy by
the DC medical examiner was concluded, and they concluded in

(28:49):
the autopsy that he passed away with what they said
were natural causes and he had a double stroke at
the base of his brain stem. Later on, the same
medical examiner and a US conference had stated that the
actually the activities of the day contributed to his medical condition.
So it wasn't in the in the writing, but you

(29:11):
know that that was enough if you have somebody that's
on duty and then I'm just saying this from a
law enforcement management or.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Leadership point of view.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
If you have somebody that's on duty, uh in conducting
their their line of duty and dies, that's going to
be a line of duty death. And this was a
line of duty death. So that was a situation with
Brian sick Nick. Then what you had is on that Saturday,
which would have been the ninth, January ninth, you had
the first of a series of suicides, first by the

(29:41):
name of Howard leaving Good.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
He was a US Capitol.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Police officer who lived out in Paterface County committed suicide.
I was in moving all the stuff out of my
office when my watchmanner came in and passed on that
that news to me. Uh, the person who was acting
here they made acting chief and that's the whole story
in itself, was at home and I had to call
her and tell her, you know, the news, and tell
her to come on in because, uh, you know, we

(30:04):
got a.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Lot to do.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
But yeah, so so his suicide ultimately, after a lot
of back and forth.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Was made a line of duty death.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
My my, my thought is, you know, with with many
lines different lines of work, especially law enforcement, you're exposed
to a lot of different trauma you go through, you know,
a lot of different issues. There's a lot of PTSD
uh in law enforcement. But we've really fought hard, uh
to make sure that officers know that there's there's options.
You know, these officers walk around they've got a gun

(30:35):
on their hip. Uh, you know whenever they're on duty
to carry it home with them.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
They have other options than to than to turn and
consider suicide. Now you know, it's it's okay to get counseling,
and you know a lot of agencies white counseling available
to to the officers. I get concerned that, you know,
it's it's always it's rare that they'll ever make a
suicide line of duty death. And I just hate to

(30:59):
think that, you know, there's other people that thinking, Okay,
now we've had his suicide declared line of duty. Jeff Smith,
who is with DC Police, committed suicide. I want to
say approxily ten days later, on like January nineteenth, if
I have my dates right, I think I'm pretty close.
But it's been a couple of years committed suicide. His
was also determined to be a line of duty depth.
I get concerned that when you do that, I don't

(31:21):
want to give officers the impression that you know, hey,
if I've had really a couple of traumatic experiences and
you know, things aren't going well for me, this is
an option for my family get you know, full full
benefits in a lot of duty death funeral. It just
raised for me. It raises concerns when they go through
that that you know, this may be an option for him.

(31:43):
So you know, I want any any officers listening that
you know this isn't isn't a course of action that
you really want to take. You know, consider the counseling,
consider what other options are to you, and you know,
don't don't turn toward your service weapon or anything like
that to all problems.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's unfortunate that an individual is in a position where
that does make sense to them, and it's a good
reminder of how difficult this job is and why it
is deserving of respect. Steven Son, is there anything we
did not get to? I got about a minute that
you wanted to offer up before we close.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the book. My intention was
to never write a book. He always hear about these
people writing books. I'm sitting at the desk where when
I was forced to leave. I sat down and I
started just writing every note I've done, after action reports,
over and over and over again, and started putting this together.
And at first of my wife was like, you sure,
this is what you want to do, because I was
reliving this for fourteen hours a day every day, and

(32:41):
then when it all started coming together, you wouldn't believe
what was going on with the intelligence, with the with
the FBI, with you know, I was putting together a
briefing beforehand, and what was being told me that it's
just when you look at it, it just got so chaotic,
and it didn't have to be like that. I still
believe Jane or six could have been. I'm prevented. If
they want it, they had listened to me. But if

(33:03):
so many people had just done their job the way
they're supposed to, we wouldn't be here talking right now.
So I ended up putting it together. It's now been
referred to on Capitol Hill as the Tenetive after Action
of January sixth. If your readers are interested, it's on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Get the paperback.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
The paperback has the most up to date information. But
I think they'll find it shocking. It's the exoneration I got.
Some Congress isn't even in there because it happens since
the last edition.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
So I'm sure that'll be updated.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
But you know, January sixth committee under very louder much
coming back.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
You know they may invite me down to testify.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
I'm more than happy to testify.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
That'll be probably the third time I've been down to
test by one time say that SELEC Committe wouldn't let
me testify.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
In public.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
But you're gonna hear a little you know, you'll read
a little bit about Slight Committee.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
And some of the issues they had.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
But no, I appreciate you mentioning it, and I appreciate
your interest in the in the story, there's there's still
a lot more there.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Thank you for your service. Good surface, Steven Sun, Capitol
Police Chief in January.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
It's left for doing.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Thank you, and good night.