December 22, 2025 • 33 mins
Michael Berry sits down with former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund as he gives his unfiltered, deeply personal account of January 6—what he requested, what he was denied, and why he believes the truth still hasn’t fully surfaced.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Till Michael Verishow is on the air, even somebodys our guests.
He's a former Capital City Police Chief, a position he
held on January sixth, twenty twenty one. I wanted to
make the point with his background. This guy's not a lightweight.
He's got a BS at ms from Johns Hopkins University,
a pretty highbrow, rigorous academic background. He has an MA
(00:35):
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. 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
(00:56):
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 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
(01:17):
you know it of January sixth, I will.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
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 national Guard 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 enforcem and 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
(01:43):
the first day of the one hundred and seventeenth Congress.
Regardless if it falls on a weekend, 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 crowds that were coming in,
and mind you, the intelligence I was getting in the
intelligence and a whole other issue of what the intelligence
(02:05):
I was getting didn't say anything about any type of
coordinated attack of 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
(02:27):
seventy 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 federal law. This is another interesting thing. If
(02:47):
I want to bring in any assistance for my officers,
any federal assistance, whether it's being National Guard, f any
federal assistance, I have to buy law. It's to us
nineteen seventy get permission from the Capitol Police Board. So
Sunday morning, at 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.
(03:07):
He was the big, heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened
to him on the Capitol police board. I think this
would be a sensitive topic for him. But I went
over and asked for national Guard support specifically, just for
the Premier, unarmed national Guard support. I wasn't asking for
farm national Guard support at that time. He didn't approve it.
He didn't approve it specifically because he said he didn't
like the optics of the national Guard standing a line
(03:27):
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 and the support it. Well, yeah,
I understand the intelligence didn't support it, but I still
worried about the size of the crowds. And I told him,
you know that I'm more about the size of the
crowds and i'd like to, you know, have some resources
on the Premier with my officers. Again, he at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Can you give us a time from again? When was
this conversation?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Roughly, this conversation was on Monday, January third, three days
before January sixth.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, plenty of time to muster troops if you need them.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Plenty of times the must 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 eaves the
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 Singer, who's now the chairman
of the Capitol Police Board and he became the chairman
on that day. I went over to his office. Mike
(04:25):
Sneer wasn't in. I came back later on, right a
little bit after eleven, he's in the office, and I
can tell he's already been giving heads up. I'm coming
over to ask for Nation Guard. When I asked for
National Guard 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, hed, you know, I was
coming over, said IRV and told him, but anyway, he wouldn't.
(04:46):
He wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, waytn't you 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 tol'd I can call General Walker,
but that's still not going to help us if we're
having you know, issues on the perimeter. But he said,
I got to run out. He's going to the swearing
in of members of Congress, and he said, that's that's
(05:07):
that's the 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 to her time. Later I
get back, 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 coming to support you know, civil authorities,
law enforcement it's needed. She was calling to ask if
(05:28):
we were going to be requesting the National Guard for
January six Now I'd just been denied twice my request
for the use of the National Guard on January sixth,
and by 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
(05:49):
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 the
pipe bomb that had we started dealing with got the
Republican National Committee, which is just a couple of blocks
south of the US Capitol, we had been alerted of
a pipe bomb. I want to say, right around twelve
forty one pm, we're dealing with that. I mean my
(06:12):
watchmanage showing me some pictures of the pipe bomb. When
somebody says we have a large crowd approaching our west front,
I look up when we have cameras. There's two roadways
coming up towards the west front, right next to the
reflecting Pool, Pennsylvania Avenue, Maryland Avenue, coming up to two circles.
I see a couple hundred people at each of the
circles approaching our fence line, and some of the people
(06:33):
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 and the gate, and we'll usually have ten
fifteen minutes of back and forth where they're yelling and
so like that before he gets to this point. This
was 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
(06:55):
were in the in the crowd. So I look down.
That's twelve fifty three. I see what's going on. I
you know, having come from DC Police, I reach over
dcent Police and say, hey, if you guys get some resources,
send them our way. And then at twelve fifty eight,
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.
(07:17):
Now Congress has since changed that law December of twenty
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling
resources that I'm having to go to this but anyway,
they say, admitted the failure. So twelve fifty eight, I
call Paul Irving. It took eleven calls. Let me back up.
I start following myself. My adrenaline start pumping when I'm
talking about this. So when I first called him, I said,
(07:37):
it's bad on the West Front. My officers are getting overrun.
I need federal resources now, I need permission to call
in 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 seeing right behind me, watching the same thing 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
(07:58):
the crowd's getting start to move on the Capitol. I
so I call Mike Stinger, the Senates Urgeon Arms, call
him immediately and say, hey, you know we're getting over
run again. He has some thea's I'm sitting right behind me.
I need immedia permission to bring in the National Guard.
He said, what did Paul Irving tell you? I said,
he's going to run it up the chain. I mean
he's going to run it. Speaking closely, you can get
right back to me. He said, Well, let's wait to
(08:19):
hear from Paul Irving. I made eleven more phone calls
to the two of them, seventy one minutes before I
finally got approval at two nine pm.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So Michael Barry's.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Jones, the chief of the Capitol Police, on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen Sound.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
He's our guest telling his story, 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 Capitol? Do you suspect that any of those
(09:03):
individuals are federal plans? 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 3 (09:14):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It, I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be
important to know.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, So at the time, all I was thinking about
had how do we get my officers some assistants. Uh?
They were they were getting their rear ends handed to them. Uh,
And I need to give 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, really stick
to it. Be a person of the facts. If I
(09:44):
know facts, I'm going to pass them on. You know,
I hear a lot about you know, there could be
a 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, looks like brand new acquitment, brand
new hats, flags, stuff like that. Who knows, who knows
(10:04):
what that that could tell you, But I will tell
you, you know, I've suspected you know all, 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'll put together some
of these plain closed teams that oftentimes are made up
(10:27):
of you know, people from the Washington Field Office of
the FBI, Secret Service, some of the Joint Terrorist Task
Force 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 suspecif package
quickly to start making assessments. So it wouldn't I wouldn't
have been surprised to think, okay, we had some some
plain closed assets in the in the crowd. But you know,
(10:48):
as I began to do 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, whistle
blowers come out and start pushing 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
(11:11):
considered domestic terrorists that were most likely planning to come
to Washingt d C. For the event. 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 just nobody. They're
(11:34):
going to be tracking them with agents. If they think
somebody comes in, they know they have a flight coming
in or something like that, they're going to be putting
eyes on these people. 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 resources
in the crowd watching them. So that's where I based
my opinion on. Now, Christopher has come out and said
(11:54):
that there was a number of what they call confidential
human sources HSS in the crowd. Some people have said
the CHS is we're the ones watching the uh uh
their domestic terrorist targets. I don't buy that. That's not
what I considered the police work, because you can only
trust a CHS so much. But that's where I always
base my opinion on that. You know what, I would
have been surprised there's playing closed ass in the growd.
(12:17):
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 capital,
I find that very very concerning And if and if
proven be true, that's you know, 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 2 (12:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
That some people could be pushing pushing the group. 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 blatant 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
(13:08):
my request, and now we find out that there's probably
some influence coming from General Millie on on that the
influence on from General Milly onto Acting Secretary Defense Christopher Miller,
that caused him to place additional restrictions on the National
Bar that no one knew about. When you start looking
at that, you're like, yeah, this really, you know, could
make a really interesting conspiracy theory novel when you look
(13:29):
at what was going on in that aspect, and you know, really,
who who was you 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, which
is 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
(13:53):
it before the DC National Guard coming down to the DC.
Nash Guard had one hundred and fifty five troops with
an eyesight of CAP and they didn't get the until
five forty pm at night, once all the fighting 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
(14:15):
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 made by the name of Lieutenant General
Walter Pyot, 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
(14:36):
other people, including a guy that at one point was
the Army's Acting General Counsel, Colonel Earl Matthews. He has
since come out as a whistleblar on my behalf. And
I told him, I said I needed 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 capitol. And he tells me the exact
(14:56):
same thing. Paul Irving told me, I don't like the
optic of the National Guards standing a line with capital
in the background. I was dune found I'm hearing the
exact same thing. So you know, I'm wondering, is there
some talking points behind this. I repeatedly, I'm baging. I'm
almost at tears, and the marriage Mountain said this. I
was almost at peers, begging him to send me resources,
and kept hearing this over and over, and he said
(15:18):
his recommendations to 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 of Vash Babbitt
and I had to get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (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 a
horrible as Richard Nation 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 our guest. He was a Capital City police
(16:33):
chief on January the Capitol police chief on January sixth,
twenty one, Jackie you here? Where's Jackson? A crash that
killed Congresswoman jack Uell Or here die Sun does our guest.
He was the police chief, the Capital Police on January
(16:55):
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 at the
floor is yours?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I appreciate it. So you know, here we are January
January sixth. We get everybody back into back in the session.
The National Guard finally shows up at five forty pm.
We have to swear them in a special police officers.
They once they get off their bus, the fighting is over.
You know, we've got everything done. Everything is secured. I
brought in seventeen law enforcement agencies, seventeen hundred police officers.
(17:36):
That's all taken care of. What did they do? They
line up with all their ride gear, take a picture
with the Capitol in the background and put it on
Military Time magazine. I thought you'd just get a kick
out of that. When the Pentagon had said they were
so concerned about the optics and to have that be
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
(17:57):
mind you that evening to Speaker Pelosi three times. First
time brought around five thirty five. I'd gone over to
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 in the pan Center getting things under control. But
once we could, I went over to brief him. When
(18:20):
I briefed him of when we can get them back
in a session, he got Speaker Pelosi on a call.
We'm pretty sure. And this has now all come out,
and 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 h and you'll see some of
this that I talk about. And there's a video of
me with Pence and her getting a call from Pence,
(18:40):
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 with briefing members of Congress about, you know,
what the plan is moving forward with the plan is
with National Guard support. When I get a call that
Speaker Pelosi is right around 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
(19:04):
my chief administrative officers, you know, said hey, let's go
in your office. We'll watch it there. Gave my wife
a little heads up, went in, watched it, and its
about a twenty minute press conference and it's on YouTube.
You can watch. It's the very end of the press conference.
It's a planning question. Somebody asked, you know, what are
younna do about security failures 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
(19:25):
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
you know he has to go. He failed. I'm trying
to think exactly what she said, but you can tell
she studies over her voice for a little bit. Now,
mind you, I had caught tried to get National Guard
(19:45):
in advance on January third, and repeatedly on January sixth,
and been denied by her sergeant at arms specifically. And
then she goes on 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 since this curve, which is a lie. Uh,
and then calls for my resignation. You know, I sat
(20:06):
and talked to my wife. I was having stuff to
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 uh.
The very next morning, I got a call saying you're
immediately Uh. I was cut off from all my computer
access uh and was to move out of my office immediately.
(20:27):
So over that weekend I actually was moving everything out
of my office. Uh. And has never stepped back and
foot in that office again. Nobody has talked to me. Uh. Well,
very little. I had to go down for a couple
of conferences but yeah, it wasn't getting didn't get access
to any investigation, uh, nothing like that. So so I
agree there was there was a number of key people
(20:47):
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 levels of sentencing handed down,
(21:13):
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 when
I tried to prevent that. Now Congress has come out
if you look at some of the recent hearings and reports,
Congress has said if the Sergeant at Arms had approved
Sun's request for dashboard support on January third, chances are
the capital have never been breached. And then in December seventeenth,
(21:36):
twenty twenty four, under Chairman Very Louder Route their last
report that they did now that I think that 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 you know, all benefits, everything like that.
It was immediately stripped. Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah. I
(21:59):
was only a few months away from me and totally
totally vested. And I do believe if the facts have
been known, I 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,
(22:20):
still working with Chairman Laudermilk, you know, working to get
some executive branch support to have them look at my
case to see about, you know, returning whatever benefits made
stripped from me.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
How many years in law enforcement, total of thirty.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Years in law enforcement. I did retire from DC Police.
I did get my retirement from DC Police. But for me,
it's 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. It's 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. I've
turned over all my phone records, my transcripts, my emails,
(23:00):
they have everything. And I just find that that interesting
that you know I'm the one targeted. But you know, well,
we'll fight. I know. The truth is, the truth is
coming out, and as more the truth comes out, the
better it looks for me.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
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,
(23:36):
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
(23:56):
because you're prone to believing and inclined and buy and
prejudice toward 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.
(24:17):
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.
(24:39):
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.
You know, I consider this to be a major calamity,
(25:05):
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, I have a
couple of course, they remain scared the death of you,
and they remain scared to death of Trump. Michael berrieshow
you're not going anywhere even if Trump does, You're not.
(25:28):
Steven Sunned is our guest s und if 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's the former police 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
(25:48):
you you had a lot of guys. How big is
the Capitol Police Force?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Capitol Police Force? When when I was there, a lot
of people are kind of surprised by It's one thousand,
nine hundred and six three officers with a budget of
about four hundred and sixty three million dollars. It comes
out to me about the twenty fifth department in the country.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
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.
(26:30):
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
(26:50):
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
from blunt force trauma. But that you had a number
(27:14):
of officers who committed suicide. They took their own life.
Their lives were not taken by the protesters. Can you
speak to that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
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 I was in walveson
of the fighting on the West Front. He had been
sprayed with pepper spray. At one point the media had
(27:43):
said he had been hit with 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. Don't have the capital under control.
We've got a bunch officers on the perimeter, insides under control.
(28:04):
He's now walking with a couple of Capitol Police officers
and a Virginia State trooper who happens to be a medic.
Uh to go get a bit. He's walking along and
he just dropped 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, you there was like you know, he
was completely unconscious. He went over to a GW hospital
(28:24):
where they identified that he had what appeared to be
some type of a neurological issue at the basis of
brain stem with 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, Uh. They and they concluded in the autopsy
(28:45):
that he passed away with what they said were natural
causes uh, and he had a double stroke at the
base of his brain stem.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
UH.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Later on, the same medical examiner and a press 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 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 leadership
(29:11):
point of view. 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 uh the
ninth change or ninth you had the first of a
(29:32):
series of suicides. Uh. First by the name of Howard
leaving Good. He was a US Capitol police officer, lived
out in Prefect County. Committed suicide. I always moving all
the stuff out of my office. When my watch manager
came in and passed on that that news to me. Uh,
the person who was acting you they made acting chief
and that's the whole story in itself, was at home
(29:53):
and I had to call her and tell her, you know,
the news, to tell her to come on in because uh,
you know, we got a lot to do. But yeah,
so so his suicide ultimately, after a lot of back
and forth, was made a line of duty death. My my,
My thought is, you know, with with many lines different
lines of work, especially law enforcement, you're exposed to a
(30:15):
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 on their hip, uh,
you know, whenever they're on duty to carry it home
with them. Uh. They have other options than to than
to turn and consider suicide. Now you know it's it's
(30:39):
okay to get counseling, and you know a lot of
agencies white counseling available 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 think that, you know, there's other people that think, Okay,
now we've had his suicide declared line of duty. Jeff Smith,
who is with the police, committed suicide. I want to say,
(31:02):
apprised me 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. UH committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
His was also.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Determined to be a line of duty death. I get
concerned that when when you do that, I don't 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 lone of duty death funeral. It just raises for me,
It raised concerns when they go through that that you know,
(31:33):
this may be an option for them. 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 solve problems.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's unfortunate, uh, that an individual is in a position
where that does make sense to them. And it's a
good reminder of how different cult 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 3 (32:11):
Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the book. My intention was
to never write a book. You always here 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 that first of my wife was like, sure, this
is what you want to do. Because I was reliaving
this for fourteen hours a day every day, and then
(32:32):
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 prevented if they wanted to.
They listened to me. But if so many people had
(32:54):
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. Now been referred to on Capitol Hill
as the tentative after Action of January sixth. If your
readers are interested, it's on Amazon. Get the paperback. The
paperback has the most up to date information, but I
think they'll find it shocking. It's the The exoneration I
got from Congress isn't even in there because it happens
(33:16):
since the last edition. So I'm sure that'll be updated.
But you know, January sixth committee under very louder MUCKs
coming back. You know, they may invite me down to testify.
I'm more than happy to testify. That'll be probably the
third time I've been down to test by one time.
The Sllely Committee wouldn't let me testify in public. H
But you're gonna hear a.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Little ye know. You'll read a little bit about the Slight.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Committee and some of the issues they had. 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 2 (33:44):
Thank you for your service. Good surface, Steven Sun, Capitol
Police Chief in January's no thank you, I'm good night.
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Till Michael Verishow is on the air, even somebodys our guests.
He's a former Capital City Police Chief, a position he
held on January sixth, twenty twenty one. I wanted to
make the point with his background. This guy's not a lightweight.
He's got a BS at ms from Johns Hopkins University,
a pretty highbrow, rigorous academic background. He has an MA
(00:35):
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. 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
(00:56):
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 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
(01:17):
you know it of January sixth, I will.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
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 national Guard 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 enforcem and 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
(01:43):
the first day of the one hundred and seventeenth Congress.
Regardless if it falls on a weekend, 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 crowds that were coming in,
and mind you, the intelligence I was getting in the
intelligence and a whole other issue of what the intelligence
(02:05):
I was getting didn't say anything about any type of
coordinated attack of 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
(02:27):
seventy 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 federal law. This is another interesting thing. If
(02:47):
I want to bring in any assistance for my officers,
any federal assistance, whether it's being National Guard, f any
federal assistance, I have to buy law. It's to us
nineteen seventy get permission from the Capitol Police Board. So
Sunday morning, at 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.
(03:07):
He was the big, heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened
to him on the Capitol police board. I think this
would be a sensitive topic for him. But I went
over and asked for national Guard support specifically, just for
the Premier, unarmed national Guard support. I wasn't asking for
farm national Guard support at that time. He didn't approve it.
He didn't approve it specifically because he said he didn't
like the optics of the national Guard standing a line
(03:27):
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 and the support it. Well, yeah,
I understand the intelligence didn't support it, but I still
worried about the size of the crowds. And I told him,
you know that I'm more about the size of the
crowds and i'd like to, you know, have some resources
on the Premier with my officers. Again, he at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Can you give us a time from again? When was
this conversation?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Roughly, this conversation was on Monday, January third, three days
before January sixth.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, plenty of time to muster troops if you need them.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Plenty of times the must 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 eaves the
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 Singer, who's now the chairman
of the Capitol Police Board and he became the chairman
on that day. I went over to his office. Mike
(04:25):
Sneer wasn't in. I came back later on, right a
little bit after eleven, he's in the office, and I
can tell he's already been giving heads up. I'm coming
over to ask for Nation Guard. When I asked for
National Guard 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, hed, you know, I was
coming over, said IRV and told him, but anyway, he wouldn't.
(04:46):
He wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, waytn't you 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 tol'd I can call General Walker,
but that's still not going to help us if we're
having you know, issues on the perimeter. But he said,
I got to run out. He's going to the swearing
in of members of Congress, and he said, that's that's
(05:07):
that's the 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 to her time. Later I
get back, 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 coming to support you know, civil authorities,
law enforcement it's needed. She was calling to ask if
(05:28):
we were going to be requesting the National Guard for
January six Now I'd just been denied twice my request
for the use of the National Guard on January sixth,
and by 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
(05:49):
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 the
pipe bomb that had we started dealing with got the
Republican National Committee, which is just a couple of blocks
south of the US Capitol, we had been alerted of
a pipe bomb. I want to say, right around twelve
forty one pm, we're dealing with that. I mean my
(06:12):
watchmanage showing me some pictures of the pipe bomb. When
somebody says we have a large crowd approaching our west front,
I look up when we have cameras. There's two roadways
coming up towards the west front, right next to the
reflecting Pool, Pennsylvania Avenue, Maryland Avenue, coming up to two circles.
I see a couple hundred people at each of the
circles approaching our fence line, and some of the people
(06:33):
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 and the gate, and we'll usually have ten
fifteen minutes of back and forth where they're yelling and
so like that before he gets to this point. This
was 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
(06:55):
were in the in the crowd. So I look down.
That's twelve fifty three. I see what's going on. I
you know, having come from DC Police, I reach over
dcent Police and say, hey, if you guys get some resources,
send them our way. And then at twelve fifty eight,
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.
(07:17):
Now Congress has since changed that law December of twenty
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling
resources that I'm having to go to this but anyway,
they say, admitted the failure. So twelve fifty eight, I
call Paul Irving. It took eleven calls. Let me back up.
I start following myself. My adrenaline start pumping when I'm
talking about this. So when I first called him, I said,
(07:37):
it's bad on the West Front. My officers are getting overrun.
I need federal resources now, I need permission to call
in 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 seeing right behind me, watching the same thing 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
(07:58):
the crowd's getting start to move on the Capitol. I
so I call Mike Stinger, the Senates Urgeon Arms, call
him immediately and say, hey, you know we're getting over
run again. He has some thea's I'm sitting right behind me.
I need immedia permission to bring in the National Guard.
He said, what did Paul Irving tell you? I said,
he's going to run it up the chain. I mean
he's going to run it. Speaking closely, you can get
right back to me. He said, Well, let's wait to
(08:19):
hear from Paul Irving. I made eleven more phone calls
to the two of them, seventy one minutes before I
finally got approval at two nine pm.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So Michael Barry's.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Jones, the chief of the Capitol Police, on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen Sound.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
He's our guest telling his story, 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 Capitol? Do you suspect that any of those
(09:03):
individuals are federal plans? 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 3 (09:14):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It, I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be
important to know.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, So at the time, all I was thinking about
had how do we get my officers some assistants. Uh?
They were they were getting their rear ends handed to them. Uh,
And I need to give 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, really stick
to it. Be a person of the facts. If I
(09:44):
know facts, I'm going to pass them on. You know,
I hear a lot about you know, there could be
a 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, looks like brand new acquitment, brand
new hats, flags, stuff like that. Who knows, who knows
(10:04):
what that that could tell you, But I will tell
you, you know, I've suspected you know all, 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'll put together some
of these plain closed teams that oftentimes are made up
(10:27):
of you know, people from the Washington Field Office of
the FBI, Secret Service, some of the Joint Terrorist Task
Force 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 suspecif package
quickly to start making assessments. So it wouldn't I wouldn't
have been surprised to think, okay, we had some some
plain closed assets in the in the crowd. But you know,
(10:48):
as I began to do 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, whistle
blowers come out and start pushing 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
(11:11):
considered domestic terrorists that were most likely planning to come
to Washingt d C. For the event. 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 just nobody. They're
(11:34):
going to be tracking them with agents. If they think
somebody comes in, they know they have a flight coming
in or something like that, they're going to be putting
eyes on these people. 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 resources
in the crowd watching them. So that's where I based
my opinion on. Now, Christopher has come out and said
(11:54):
that there was a number of what they call confidential
human sources HSS in the crowd. Some people have said
the CHS is we're the ones watching the uh uh
their domestic terrorist targets. I don't buy that. That's not
what I considered the police work, because you can only
trust a CHS so much. But that's where I always
base my opinion on that. You know what, I would
have been surprised there's playing closed ass in the growd.
(12:17):
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 capital,
I find that very very concerning And if and if
proven be true, that's you know, 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 2 (12:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
That some people could be pushing pushing the group. 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 blatant 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
(13:08):
my request, and now we find out that there's probably
some influence coming from General Millie on on that the
influence on from General Milly onto Acting Secretary Defense Christopher Miller,
that caused him to place additional restrictions on the National
Bar that no one knew about. When you start looking
at that, you're like, yeah, this really, you know, could
make a really interesting conspiracy theory novel when you look
(13:29):
at what was going on in that aspect, and you know, really,
who who was you 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, which
is 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
(13:53):
it before the DC National Guard coming down to the DC.
Nash Guard had one hundred and fifty five troops with
an eyesight of CAP and they didn't get the until
five forty pm at night, once all the fighting 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
(14:15):
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 made by the name of Lieutenant General
Walter Pyot, 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
(14:36):
other people, including a guy that at one point was
the Army's Acting General Counsel, Colonel Earl Matthews. He has
since come out as a whistleblar on my behalf. And
I told him, I said I needed 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 capitol. And he tells me the exact
(14:56):
same thing. Paul Irving told me, I don't like the
optic of the National Guards standing a line with capital
in the background. I was dune found I'm hearing the
exact same thing. So you know, I'm wondering, is there
some talking points behind this. I repeatedly, I'm baging. I'm
almost at tears, and the marriage Mountain said this. I
was almost at peers, begging him to send me resources,
and kept hearing this over and over, and he said
(15:18):
his recommendations to 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 of Vash Babbitt
and I had to get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (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 a
horrible as Richard Nation 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 our guest. He was a Capital City police
(16:33):
chief on January the Capitol police chief on January sixth,
twenty one, Jackie you here? Where's Jackson? A crash that
killed Congresswoman jack Uell Or here die Sun does our guest.
He was the police chief, the Capital Police on January
(16:55):
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 at the
floor is yours?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I appreciate it. So you know, here we are January
January sixth. We get everybody back into back in the session.
The National Guard finally shows up at five forty pm.
We have to swear them in a special police officers.
They once they get off their bus, the fighting is over.
You know, we've got everything done. Everything is secured. I
brought in seventeen law enforcement agencies, seventeen hundred police officers.
(17:36):
That's all taken care of. What did they do? They
line up with all their ride gear, take a picture
with the Capitol in the background and put it on
Military Time magazine. I thought you'd just get a kick
out of that. When the Pentagon had said they were
so concerned about the optics and to have that be
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
(17:57):
mind you that evening to Speaker Pelosi three times. First
time brought around five thirty five. I'd gone over to
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 in the pan Center getting things under control. But
once we could, I went over to brief him. When
(18:20):
I briefed him of when we can get them back
in a session, he got Speaker Pelosi on a call.
We'm pretty sure. And this has now all come out,
and 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 h and you'll see some of
this that I talk about. And there's a video of
me with Pence and her getting a call from Pence,
(18:40):
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 with briefing members of Congress about, you know,
what the plan is moving forward with the plan is
with National Guard support. When I get a call that
Speaker Pelosi is right around 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
(19:04):
my chief administrative officers, you know, said hey, let's go
in your office. We'll watch it there. Gave my wife
a little heads up, went in, watched it, and its
about a twenty minute press conference and it's on YouTube.
You can watch. It's the very end of the press conference.
It's a planning question. Somebody asked, you know, what are
younna do about security failures 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
(19:25):
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
you know he has to go. He failed. I'm trying
to think exactly what she said, but you can tell
she studies over her voice for a little bit. Now,
mind you, I had caught tried to get National Guard
(19:45):
in advance on January third, and repeatedly on January sixth,
and been denied by her sergeant at arms specifically. And
then she goes on 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 since this curve, which is a lie. Uh,
and then calls for my resignation. You know, I sat
(20:06):
and talked to my wife. I was having stuff to
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 uh.
The very next morning, I got a call saying you're
immediately Uh. I was cut off from all my computer
access uh and was to move out of my office immediately.
(20:27):
So over that weekend I actually was moving everything out
of my office. Uh. And has never stepped back and
foot in that office again. Nobody has talked to me. Uh. Well,
very little. I had to go down for a couple
of conferences but yeah, it wasn't getting didn't get access
to any investigation, uh, nothing like that. So so I
agree there was there was a number of key people
(20:47):
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 levels of sentencing handed down,
(21:13):
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 when
I tried to prevent that. Now Congress has come out
if you look at some of the recent hearings and reports,
Congress has said if the Sergeant at Arms had approved
Sun's request for dashboard support on January third, chances are
the capital have never been breached. And then in December seventeenth,
(21:36):
twenty twenty four, under Chairman Very Louder Route their last
report that they did now that I think that 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 you know, all benefits, everything like that.
It was immediately stripped. Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah. I
(21:59):
was only a few months away from me and totally
totally vested. And I do believe if the facts have
been known, I 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,
(22:20):
still working with Chairman Laudermilk, you know, working to get
some executive branch support to have them look at my
case to see about, you know, returning whatever benefits made
stripped from me.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
How many years in law enforcement, total of thirty.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Years in law enforcement. I did retire from DC Police.
I did get my retirement from DC Police. But for me,
it's 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. It's 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. I've
turned over all my phone records, my transcripts, my emails,
(23:00):
they have everything. And I just find that that interesting
that you know I'm the one targeted. But you know, well,
we'll fight. I know. The truth is, the truth is
coming out, and as more the truth comes out, the
better it looks for me.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
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,
(23:36):
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
(23:56):
because you're prone to believing and inclined and buy and
prejudice toward 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.
(24:17):
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.
(24:39):
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.
You know, I consider this to be a major calamity,
(25:05):
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, I have a
couple of course, they remain scared the death of you,
and they remain scared to death of Trump. Michael berrieshow
you're not going anywhere even if Trump does, You're not.
(25:28):
Steven Sunned is our guest s und if 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's the former police 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
(25:48):
you you had a lot of guys. How big is
the Capitol Police Force?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Capitol Police Force? When when I was there, a lot
of people are kind of surprised by It's one thousand,
nine hundred and six three officers with a budget of
about four hundred and sixty three million dollars. It comes
out to me about the twenty fifth department in the country.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
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.
(26:30):
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
(26:50):
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
from blunt force trauma. But that you had a number
(27:14):
of officers who committed suicide. They took their own life.
Their lives were not taken by the protesters. Can you
speak to that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
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 I was in walveson
of the fighting on the West Front. He had been
sprayed with pepper spray. At one point the media had
(27:43):
said he had been hit with 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. Don't have the capital under control.
We've got a bunch officers on the perimeter, insides under control.
(28:04):
He's now walking with a couple of Capitol Police officers
and a Virginia State trooper who happens to be a medic.
Uh to go get a bit. He's walking along and
he just dropped 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, you there was like you know, he
was completely unconscious. He went over to a GW hospital
(28:24):
where they identified that he had what appeared to be
some type of a neurological issue at the basis of
brain stem with 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, Uh. They and they concluded in the autopsy
(28:45):
that he passed away with what they said were natural
causes uh, and he had a double stroke at the
base of his brain stem.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
UH.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Later on, the same medical examiner and a press 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 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 leadership
(29:11):
point of view. 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 uh the
ninth change or ninth you had the first of a
(29:32):
series of suicides. Uh. First by the name of Howard
leaving Good. He was a US Capitol police officer, lived
out in Prefect County. Committed suicide. I always moving all
the stuff out of my office. When my watch manager
came in and passed on that that news to me. Uh,
the person who was acting you they made acting chief
and that's the whole story in itself, was at home
(29:53):
and I had to call her and tell her, you know,
the news, to tell her to come on in because uh,
you know, we got a lot to do. But yeah,
so so his suicide ultimately, after a lot of back
and forth, was made a line of duty death. My my,
My thought is, you know, with with many lines different
lines of work, especially law enforcement, you're exposed to a
(30:15):
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 on their hip, uh,
you know, whenever they're on duty to carry it home
with them. Uh. They have other options than to than
to turn and consider suicide. Now you know it's it's
(30:39):
okay to get counseling, and you know a lot of
agencies white counseling available 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 think that, you know, there's other people that think, Okay,
now we've had his suicide declared line of duty. Jeff Smith,
who is with the police, committed suicide. I want to say,
(31:02):
apprised me 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. UH committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
His was also.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Determined to be a line of duty death. I get
concerned that when when you do that, I don't 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 lone of duty death funeral. It just raises for me,
It raised concerns when they go through that that you know,
(31:33):
this may be an option for them. 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 solve problems.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's unfortunate, uh, that an individual is in a position
where that does make sense to them. And it's a
good reminder of how different cult 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 3 (32:11):
Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the book. My intention was
to never write a book. You always here 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 that first of my wife was like, sure, this
is what you want to do. Because I was reliaving
this for fourteen hours a day every day, and then
(32:32):
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 prevented if they wanted to.
They listened to me. But if so many people had
(32:54):
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. Now been referred to on Capitol Hill
as the tentative after Action of January sixth. If your
readers are interested, it's on Amazon. Get the paperback. The
paperback has the most up to date information, but I
think they'll find it shocking. It's the The exoneration I
got from Congress isn't even in there because it happens
(33:16):
since the last edition. So I'm sure that'll be updated.
But you know, January sixth committee under very louder MUCKs
coming back. You know, they may invite me down to testify.
I'm more than happy to testify. That'll be probably the
third time I've been down to test by one time.
The Sllely Committee wouldn't let me testify in public. H
But you're gonna hear a.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Little ye know. You'll read a little bit about the Slight.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Committee and some of the issues they had. 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 2 (33:44):
Thank you for your service. Good surface, Steven Sun, Capitol
Police Chief in January's no thank you, I'm good night.
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