October 23, 2025 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael Verishow is on the air even Sunday's our
guest as a former CAPITALI 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 high brow, rigorous academic background. He
(00:34):
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.
This isn't somebody who rows 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
(00:55):
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
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
(01:17):
as as you know it of January.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Sixth, I 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 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 enforcement. I'm not going to say
something that I can't back up. So let's take you
(01:40):
back to the Sunday before January sixth. January third was
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 damp on Capitol Hill. I had been kind of watching,
you know, the crowd sizes that were coming in. In
(02:01):
mind you the intelligence I was getting in the intelligence
to a whole other issue of what the intelligence I
was getting didn't say anything about any type of coordinated
attack at the Capitol, any threat to the federal buildings
or to the Capitol, 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
(02:22):
that was going to surround the Capitol, which is a
sizable area. I only had two hundred and 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 Assessant 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
(02:44):
federal law. This is another interesting thing. If I want
to bring in any assistance for my officers, any federal assistance,
whether it's been a 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, at
nine thirty five, I went over to see the House
Sergeant Arms. Guy by the name of Paul Irving, who
(03:06):
I knew. He carried most of the weight. He was
the big, heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened to him
on the Capitol police board. I know this would be
a sensitive topic for him, but I went over and
ask for national Guard support specifically, just for the preimiter
unarmed national Guard support. I wasn't asking for a 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
(03:28):
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 intelligence 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 size of the
crowds and i'd like to, you know, have some resources
on the perimeter with my officers. Again, he at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
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 (04:00):
Okay, so 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 DC Police
and even with Capitol Police. Who leaves 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 Stinger, who's now the chairman of the Capitol
Police board and he became the chairman on that day.
(04:24):
I went over to his office. Mike Sninger wasn't inn
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 Guard support, he
won't approve it. Again, he's concerned. Later on he in
April of 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
(04:46):
wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, why don'ch 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 Commandian General of the DC National Guard,
William Walker. General Walker. I tol him, I can call
General Walker, but that's still not going to help us.
We have, 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 a short time later, I
get back. One of my deputy chiefs 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
(05:28):
if 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 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
(05:50):
turn it down. I've 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 down at the Republican
National Committee, which is just a couple of blocks south
of the US Capital. 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 watchman
(06:13):
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 like
roadways coming up toward the west front, right next to
the reflecting Pool, Pennsylvania Avenue, Ryland 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 in the group got very confrontational and physical
(06:36):
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 court group of people that
were in the in the crowd. So I look down.
(06:58):
That's twelve fifty three. I see what's going on. I
you know, Kevin come from DC Police. I reach over
to decent police and say, hey, if you guys get
some resources, send them our way. And the twelve fifty
eight I called the Senate Star of the I'm sorry,
the House sergeant 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
(07:20):
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling
resources that I 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,
it's bad on the West Front. My officers are getting overrun.
(07:40):
I need federal resources now, I need permission to call
in the National Guard. 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 are now backing up as
the crowd is getting cloth, you know, starting to move
(08:00):
on the Capitol. So I call Mike Stinger, the Senate
Surgeon Arms call him immediately and say, hey, you know
we're getting over run again. He has the thea's I'm
sitting right behind me. I needed media 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, I mean he's going to run
up to Speaker Celosi and get right back to me. He said, well,
let's wait to hear from Paul Irving. I made eleven
(08:21):
more phone calls to the two of them, seventy one
minutes before I finally got approval at two nine pm
and Michael Barry.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Joe the chief of the Capitol Police on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen Sound.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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 capital? Do you suspect that any of those
(09:04):
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 (09:15):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on it.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be important
to know.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah. So at the time, all I was thinking about
had had it We get my officers some assistants. Uh.
They were they were getting their rear ends handed to them. Uh.
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, really stick
to it. Be a person of the facts. If I
(09:45):
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 equipment,
brand new hats, flags, stuff like that. Who knows, who
(10:06):
knows what that that 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 of
July celebration, a state funeral, a 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
(10:28):
made up 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
the suspecial 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.
(10:50):
But you know, 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
they sat at home, and I had people come out
of the woodwork, I had 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
(11:10):
that indicated there's several what they considered domestic terrorists that
were most likely planning to come to Washington, 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 aftermath that there 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
(11:33):
not tracking them with just nobody. They're 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.
(11:53):
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 team and sources chs
is in the crowd. Uh. 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 consider the police work because you can only trust
a CHS so much. But that's where I always base
(12:15):
my opinion on that. You know what, I would have
been surprised and there's playing closed ass in the crowd.
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 to 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 (12:39):
I know, you choose your words carefully, not out of cowardice,
but out of caution. Is it outside the realm that
could be the.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Case, outside the realm 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 denied 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
(13:10):
do get approval approving 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 of Defense Christopher Miller that caused him to
place additional restrictions on the National Guard 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
(13:33):
on in that aspect, and you know, really, who who
is you you know, getting the most traction out of
the whole January sixth initiative. You know, we we haven't
been able to identify the pipe bomber yet, which is
I find that very interesting, But I mean, you know,
your listeners probably would be surprised. And when I activated
mutual aid, the New Jersey State Police made it before
(13:56):
the DC National Guard coming down to the decent Guard
had one hundred and fifty five troops within eyesight of
Capital 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 call to
(14:19):
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 man by the name of Lieutenant General Walter Pyot
also on the phone with me as Mayor Bowser, chief
of Police for the DC Police for Abert Conti, the
Director of Emergency Management for DC. A number of other people,
(14:39):
including a guy that at one point was the Army's
Acting General Counsel, Colonel Earl Matthews. He has since come
out as a whistleblower 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 same thing. Paul Irving
(14:59):
told I don't like the optic of the National Guards
standing aligne with cap in the background. I was dumbfound
I'm hearing the exact same thing. So you know, I'm wondering,
is there some talking points behind this? I repeatedly, I'm begging.
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
(15:21):
his recommendations to that that I my request. That was
his first response. Uh, And then I kept pleading with him.
He said, well, let me run this up the chain,
and that's when we had the shooting of Ash Babbitt
and I had to get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It's uh, it's so frustrating. 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,
(15:54):
who did little or nothing and relatively speaking, and ended
up in prison. I just think of this as a
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.
(16:15):
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. We will make time in the next segments,
even Sundays, our guest. He was the Capital City police
(16:36):
chief on January the Capitol police chief on January sixth, Jackie,
are you here? Where's Jackson?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
A crash that killed Congresswoman jack Or.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You're last summer.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You can see it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Sun is our guest. He was the police chief, 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 at the floor is yours?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
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 as special police officers.
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.
(17:41):
That's all taken care of. What do 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, were briefing members of Congress. Now now
(18:03):
mind you, that evening I talked 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 asking me to come over and
brief him. I couldn't leave because you know, I had
to be up in the fan center getting things under control.
But once we could, I went over to brief him.
(18:25):
When I briefed him of when we can get them
back into session, he got Speaker Pelosi on a call.
We 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 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
(18:46):
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 on one o'clock in the afternoon is getting
ready to go on national TV and call for my resignation.
(19:06):
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 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 you gonna do about
the security figures up on Capitol Hill. She says, that's
(19:26):
a great question. We're going to do an after action study,
which would have been smarter 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 you know
he has to go. He failed. I'm trying to think
exactly what she said, but you could tell she studies
(19:46):
over her voice for a little bit. Now, mind you,
I had caught tried to get National Guard 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 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 curve, which is a lie. Uh, and
(20:08):
then calls for my resignation. You know, I sat and
talked to my wife. I was having slept 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. I was cut
off from all my computer access uh and was to
(20:30):
move out of my office immediately. So over that weekend
I actually was moving everything out of my office and
has never stepped back and foot in that office again.
Nobody has talked to me. Uh, well, very little. I
mean had to go down for a couple of conferences,
but yeah, it wasn't getting didn't get access to any investigation,
nothing like that. So so I agree there was there
(20:51):
was a number 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 the along, looked at
the crowd, went in, didn't do anything, didnt 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, even
(21:18):
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
try 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
Stun's request for dashboard support on January third, chances are
the capital have never been breached. And then in December seventeenth,
(21:41):
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
was he stripped. Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah I was.
(22:04):
I 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,
(22:26):
still working with the chairman Laudermilk, you know, working to
get some executive branch support to have them look at
my case. Didn't see about you know, returning whatever benefits
may be stripped from me.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
How many years in law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
A 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 it's now just a
it's not the federal retirement'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.
(23:02):
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, 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 (23:19):
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,
(23:41):
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
(24:02):
because you're prone to believing and inclined and biased 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.
(24:22):
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.
(24:45):
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 America 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,
(25:10):
a major disaster in American life that needs to be
explored to extremely great extent. Chief, if you can hold
with me for one more segment, having they remain scared
the death of you, and they remain scared to death
of Trump.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
To Michael Show, You're not going anywhere even if Trump does.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You're not even 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
souned you. You had a lot of guys. How big
(25:54):
is the Capitol Police Force?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Capitol Police Force? And 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 department in the country.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
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 DC 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. People
(26:35):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:16):
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 3 (27:28):
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 Walt
someon of the fighting on the West Front. He had
been sprayed with pepper spray. At one point the media
(27:49):
had 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 got hit by that but
ended up later on that night at about probably close
to ten o'clock, maybe at 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,
(28:10):
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 PI T.
He's walking along and he just drops and the medic
immediately went to work on him. And I 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
(28:31):
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 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, and they concluded in
(28:52):
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 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,
(29:13):
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 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,
(29:36):
which would have been the ninth, January ninth, you had
the first of a series of suicides. First by the
name of Howard leaving Good. He was a US Capitol
police officer, lived out in Fairface County, committed suicide. I
was in moving all the stuff out of my office
when my watchmanager came in and passed on that that
news to me. Uh. The person who was acting, who
(29:59):
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 the news and 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,
(30:20):
with with many lines different lines of work, especially in
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 on their hip, uh, you know,
(30:40):
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 okay to get counseling,
and you know a lot of agencies and 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
(31:02):
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 DC Police, committed suicide. I want to say,
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 committed suicide. His
was also determined to be a line of duty death.
I get concerned that, you know, when when you do that,
(31:24):
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 lot of duty death funeral. It just
raised for me. It raised concerns when they go through
that that you know, this may be an option for him,
(31:46):
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 well and anything like
that to solve problems.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
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 3 (32:23):
Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the book. My intention was
to never write a book. You 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, be sure
this is what you want to do, because I was
reliaving this for fourteen hours a day every day, and
(32:44):
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
care and it didn't have to be like that. I
still believe January sixth could have been prevented if they
wanted they had listen to me. But if so many
(33:06):
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 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 exoneration I got.
(33:27):
Some Congress isn't even in there because it happens since
the last edition. So I'm sure that'll be updated. But
you know, January sixth Committee under Berylaudermuk's 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 testify. One time the Sllely Committee wouldn't
let me testify in public. But you're gonna hear a
little you know, you'll read a little bit about the
(33:49):
Slight Committee and some of the issues they had. But no,
I appreciate you mention it. I appreciate your interest in
the in the story. There's still a lot more there.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Thank you for your service. Good surface, Steven Sun capitalist
Capitol Police chief in genders as exemplemant Elms had its.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Life for building. Thank you and good night.
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael Verishow is on the air even Sunday's our
guest as a former CAPITALI 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 high brow, rigorous academic background. He
(00:34):
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.
This isn't somebody who rows 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
(00:55):
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
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
(01:17):
as as you know it of January.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Sixth, I 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 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 enforcement. I'm not going to say
something that I can't back up. So let's take you
(01:40):
back to the Sunday before January sixth. January third was
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 damp on Capitol Hill. I had been kind of watching,
you know, the crowd sizes that were coming in. In
(02:01):
mind you the intelligence I was getting in the intelligence
to a whole other issue of what the intelligence I
was getting didn't say anything about any type of coordinated
attack at the Capitol, any threat to the federal buildings
or to the Capitol, 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
(02:22):
that was going to surround the Capitol, which is a
sizable area. I only had two hundred and 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 Assessant 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
(02:44):
federal law. This is another interesting thing. If I want
to bring in any assistance for my officers, any federal assistance,
whether it's been a 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, at
nine thirty five, I went over to see the House
Sergeant Arms. Guy by the name of Paul Irving, who
(03:06):
I knew. He carried most of the weight. He was
the big, heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened to him
on the Capitol police board. I know this would be
a sensitive topic for him, but I went over and
ask for national Guard support specifically, just for the preimiter
unarmed national Guard support. I wasn't asking for a 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
(03:28):
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 intelligence 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 size of the
crowds and i'd like to, you know, have some resources
on the perimeter with my officers. Again, he at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
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 (04:00):
Okay, so 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 DC Police
and even with Capitol Police. Who leaves 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 Stinger, who's now the chairman of the Capitol
Police board and he became the chairman on that day.
(04:24):
I went over to his office. Mike Sninger wasn't inn
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 Guard support, he
won't approve it. Again, he's concerned. Later on he in
April of 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
(04:46):
wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, why don'ch 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 Commandian General of the DC National Guard,
William Walker. General Walker. I tol him, I can call
General Walker, but that's still not going to help us.
We have, 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 a short time later, I
get back. One of my deputy chiefs 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
(05:28):
if 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 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
(05:50):
turn it down. I've 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 down at the Republican
National Committee, which is just a couple of blocks south
of the US Capital. 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 watchman
(06:13):
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 like
roadways coming up toward the west front, right next to
the reflecting Pool, Pennsylvania Avenue, Ryland 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 in the group got very confrontational and physical
(06:36):
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 court group of people that
were in the in the crowd. So I look down.
(06:58):
That's twelve fifty three. I see what's going on. I
you know, Kevin come from DC Police. I reach over
to decent police and say, hey, if you guys get
some resources, send them our way. And the twelve fifty
eight I called the Senate Star of the I'm sorry,
the House sergeant 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
(07:20):
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling
resources that I 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,
it's bad on the West Front. My officers are getting overrun.
(07:40):
I need federal resources now, I need permission to call
in the National Guard. 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 are now backing up as
the crowd is getting cloth, you know, starting to move
(08:00):
on the Capitol. So I call Mike Stinger, the Senate
Surgeon Arms call him immediately and say, hey, you know
we're getting over run again. He has the thea's I'm
sitting right behind me. I needed media 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, I mean he's going to run
up to Speaker Celosi and get right back to me. He said, well,
let's wait to hear from Paul Irving. I made eleven
(08:21):
more phone calls to the two of them, seventy one
minutes before I finally got approval at two nine pm
and Michael Barry.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Joe the chief of the Capitol Police on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen Sound.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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 capital? Do you suspect that any of those
(09:04):
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 (09:15):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on it.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be important
to know.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah. So at the time, all I was thinking about
had had it We get my officers some assistants. Uh.
They were they were getting their rear ends handed to them. Uh.
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, really stick
to it. Be a person of the facts. If I
(09:45):
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 equipment,
brand new hats, flags, stuff like that. Who knows, who
(10:06):
knows what that that 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 of
July celebration, a state funeral, a 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
(10:28):
made up 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
the suspecial 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.
(10:50):
But you know, 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
they sat at home, and I had people come out
of the woodwork, I had 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
(11:10):
that indicated there's several what they considered domestic terrorists that
were most likely planning to come to Washington, 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 aftermath that there 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
(11:33):
not tracking them with just nobody. They're 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.
(11:53):
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 team and sources chs
is in the crowd. Uh. 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 consider the police work because you can only trust
a CHS so much. But that's where I always base
(12:15):
my opinion on that. You know what, I would have
been surprised and there's playing closed ass in the crowd.
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 to 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 (12:39):
I know, you choose your words carefully, not out of cowardice,
but out of caution. Is it outside the realm that
could be the.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Case, outside the realm 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 denied 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
(13:10):
do get approval approving 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 of Defense Christopher Miller that caused him to
place additional restrictions on the National Guard 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
(13:33):
on in that aspect, and you know, really, who who
is you you know, getting the most traction out of
the whole January sixth initiative. You know, we we haven't
been able to identify the pipe bomber yet, which is
I find that very interesting, But I mean, you know,
your listeners probably would be surprised. And when I activated
mutual aid, the New Jersey State Police made it before
(13:56):
the DC National Guard coming down to the decent Guard
had one hundred and fifty five troops within eyesight of
Capital 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 call to
(14:19):
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 man by the name of Lieutenant General Walter Pyot
also on the phone with me as Mayor Bowser, chief
of Police for the DC Police for Abert Conti, the
Director of Emergency Management for DC. A number of other people,
(14:39):
including a guy that at one point was the Army's
Acting General Counsel, Colonel Earl Matthews. He has since come
out as a whistleblower 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 same thing. Paul Irving
(14:59):
told I don't like the optic of the National Guards
standing aligne with cap in the background. I was dumbfound
I'm hearing the exact same thing. So you know, I'm wondering,
is there some talking points behind this? I repeatedly, I'm begging.
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
(15:21):
his recommendations to that that I my request. That was
his first response. Uh, And then I kept pleading with him.
He said, well, let me run this up the chain,
and that's when we had the shooting of Ash Babbitt
and I had to get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It's uh, it's so frustrating. 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,
(15:54):
who did little or nothing and relatively speaking, and ended
up in prison. I just think of this as a
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.
(16:15):
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. We will make time in the next segments,
even Sundays, our guest. He was the Capital City police
(16:36):
chief on January the Capitol police chief on January sixth, Jackie,
are you here? Where's Jackson?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
A crash that killed Congresswoman jack Or.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You're last summer.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You can see it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Sun is our guest. He was the police chief, 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 at the floor is yours?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
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 as special police officers.
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.
(17:41):
That's all taken care of. What do 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, were briefing members of Congress. Now now
(18:03):
mind you, that evening I talked 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 asking me to come over and
brief him. I couldn't leave because you know, I had
to be up in the fan center getting things under control.
But once we could, I went over to brief him.
(18:25):
When I briefed him of when we can get them
back into session, he got Speaker Pelosi on a call.
We 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 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
(18:46):
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 on one o'clock in the afternoon is getting
ready to go on national TV and call for my resignation.
(19:06):
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 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 you gonna do about
the security figures up on Capitol Hill. She says, that's
(19:26):
a great question. We're going to do an after action study,
which would have been smarter 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 you know
he has to go. He failed. I'm trying to think
exactly what she said, but you could tell she studies
(19:46):
over her voice for a little bit. Now, mind you,
I had caught tried to get National Guard 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 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 curve, which is a lie. Uh, and
(20:08):
then calls for my resignation. You know, I sat and
talked to my wife. I was having slept 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. I was cut
off from all my computer access uh and was to
(20:30):
move out of my office immediately. So over that weekend
I actually was moving everything out of my office and
has never stepped back and foot in that office again.
Nobody has talked to me. Uh, well, very little. I
mean had to go down for a couple of conferences,
but yeah, it wasn't getting didn't get access to any investigation,
nothing like that. So so I agree there was there
(20:51):
was a number 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 the along, looked at
the crowd, went in, didn't do anything, didnt 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, even
(21:18):
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
try 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
Stun's request for dashboard support on January third, chances are
the capital have never been breached. And then in December seventeenth,
(21:41):
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
was he stripped. Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah I was.
(22:04):
I 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,
(22:26):
still working with the chairman Laudermilk, you know, working to
get some executive branch support to have them look at
my case. Didn't see about you know, returning whatever benefits
may be stripped from me.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
How many years in law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
A 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 it's now just a
it's not the federal retirement'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.
(23:02):
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, 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 (23:19):
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,
(23:41):
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
(24:02):
because you're prone to believing and inclined and biased 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.
(24:22):
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.
(24:45):
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 America 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,
(25:10):
a major disaster in American life that needs to be
explored to extremely great extent. Chief, if you can hold
with me for one more segment, having they remain scared
the death of you, and they remain scared to death
of Trump.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
To Michael Show, You're not going anywhere even if Trump does.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You're not even 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
souned you. You had a lot of guys. How big
(25:54):
is the Capitol Police Force?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Capitol Police Force? And 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 department in the country.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
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 DC 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. People
(26:35):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:16):
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 3 (27:28):
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 Walt
someon of the fighting on the West Front. He had
been sprayed with pepper spray. At one point the media
(27:49):
had 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 got hit by that but
ended up later on that night at about probably close
to ten o'clock, maybe at 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,
(28:10):
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 PI T.
He's walking along and he just drops and the medic
immediately went to work on him. And I 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
(28:31):
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 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, and they concluded in
(28:52):
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 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,
(29:13):
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 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,
(29:36):
which would have been the ninth, January ninth, you had
the first of a series of suicides. First by the
name of Howard leaving Good. He was a US Capitol
police officer, lived out in Fairface County, committed suicide. I
was in moving all the stuff out of my office
when my watchmanager came in and passed on that that
news to me. Uh. The person who was acting, who
(29:59):
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 the news and 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,
(30:20):
with with many lines different lines of work, especially in
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 on their hip, uh, you know,
(30:40):
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 okay to get counseling,
and you know a lot of agencies and 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
(31:02):
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 DC Police, committed suicide. I want to say,
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 committed suicide. His
was also determined to be a line of duty death.
I get concerned that, you know, when when you do that,
(31:24):
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 lot of duty death funeral. It just
raised for me. It raised concerns when they go through
that that you know, this may be an option for him,
(31:46):
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 well and anything like
that to solve problems.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
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 3 (32:23):
Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the book. My intention was
to never write a book. You 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, be sure
this is what you want to do, because I was
reliaving this for fourteen hours a day every day, and
(32:44):
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
care and it didn't have to be like that. I
still believe January sixth could have been prevented if they
wanted they had listen to me. But if so many
(33:06):
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 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 exoneration I got.
(33:27):
Some Congress isn't even in there because it happens since
the last edition. So I'm sure that'll be updated. But
you know, January sixth Committee under Berylaudermuk's 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 testify. One time the Sllely Committee wouldn't
let me testify in public. But you're gonna hear a
little you know, you'll read a little bit about the
(33:49):
Slight Committee and some of the issues they had. But no,
I appreciate you mention it. I appreciate your interest in
the in the story. There's still a lot more there.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Thank you for your service. Good surface, Steven Sun capitalist
Capitol Police chief in genders as exemplemant Elms had its.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Life for building. Thank you and good night.
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