BONUS Podcast-Former Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund & The Real Story Of Jan. 6th

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Berry Show. There are certain things from history
that you don't just say, well, that's history and move on.
The Holocaust would be one such example. The coronavirus and
the quote unquote vaccine, and the mandatory jabs and the
lives lost, the lockdowns. These are things you don't simply

(00:25):
move on from. You learn from. But before you can
learn from them, you have to face painful realities and
you have to pick at a wound that a lot
of people want to move on from. That's not how
you progress. George Santana famously said, those who do not
learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

(00:47):
Often the very people who want to quote move on
don't want to bear responsibility for what happened. Nick Saban
and other coaches will tell you that some of the
most important coaching you do of a team is not
during the team, during the game, but after the game,
when you come in and watch that painful game film

(01:07):
and you see what you did that you hope nobody noticed,
and how you failed here and came up short there.
It is very important that we go back and understand
what happened. On January sixth of twenty twenty one. It's
important that we understand what happened and not be told
what happened by those with an agenda, but that we

(01:30):
do our own research and we ask questions of various people.
One of the most important voices in all of that
who has seemingly been silenced officially is Steven sund who
was the Capitol Police chief at that time on that day,
and he's our guest chief.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Welcome, thank you very much for having me on. Michael.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Let's start with how you ended up the Capitol Police
chief leave January six aside, I think you were a
Metro police officer in DC before that. Talk about your career,
why did you get into law enforcement? Jeff family in it,
and then just walk me through your whole career there.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Absolutely, I mean get the sertus succinctly as possible. Yeah,
So I did twenty five years with the DC Police,
and I got into policing because my dad had actually
gotten sick early early on. He had got lakimia. He
was a Bee fifty two pilot. He had been sick
for a number of years, but passed away when I
was sixteen. So after we got back from the funeral,

(02:32):
we just happen to be visited by two friends of
ours that we used to live with right nearby in
California that became Fremont Police officers Carolyn brad Brown Needing
sant touch today. They had reached out and came to visit.
This was the same day that we had buried my dad,
and as a young sixteen year old, as a very

(02:52):
pivotal part of my life, I looked at and said,
you know what I think. I know what I want
to do, and at from that point on, I was pursuing.
Right around twenty three, I applied to the couple different departments,
but DC Police picked me up. Started there right around
twenty five. By the time I went into the academy,
got out and patrolled as an officer in what they

(03:13):
call the sixth District, which is Antacostia, one of the
most violent parts of Washington, d C. Was there for
a couple of years, made sergeant, went to seventy, which
is also one of the most violent parts in Anacostia,
South Anacostia, down by South Capitol Street Congress Heights. Patrolled
there for a little bit and then started rising up
through the ranks. Became a lieutenant and then I got

(03:34):
assigned downtown for a little bit and went to Special
Operations Division, where I kind of stayed from lieutenant on
doing all the major events, major demonstrations in Washington, d C.
Made Captain inspector being commander of the Special Operations Division
from twenty ten to twenty fifteen, and that's when I retired.
At the end of the very last day, December thirty first,
twenty fifteen, I retired. We had the Pope come visit

(03:58):
in October, and I figured it's a good head out
went out and you know, kind of worked a little
bit in the private sector for just about eight months,
and then the House and Senate Sergeant Arms approached me
to come over and become the assistant Chief of Operations
for Capitol Police, and January seventh, I started. Twenty seventeen.

(04:19):
Started at the US Capitol Police just a few days
before Trump's inauguration, and I'd been involved in It's probably
my fifth or sixth inauguration I've been involved in planning
of so they brought me in right before that and
was there and then in May became the May of
twenty nineteen, became the chief and started revamping a lot
of operations and capabilities, and then January sixth happened and

(04:43):
I was removed from the position the very next day
by Speedar Pelosi. And I'm sure our conversation is going
to cover.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
A couple of things along there, absolutely, but before that,
let's set in place our procedures so we know the
context within which we're working. I was with Senator Cruz
at an event in Milwaukee a few years ago and
he had a large contingent of Capital Police and I
learned that those are a sign based on kind of

(05:09):
death threats, and it's all on a screen, as you know,
And it turns out he was getting more death threats
than Pelosi and every other member of Congress combined. And
it was kind of interesting to me that that was,
you know, that that unlike the president, which is kind of,
you know, a designated secret service for the president. It
was sort of where is the threat right now? It
might be Jasmine Crockett on Monday, it might be Ted

(05:31):
Cruz on Thursday, or whoever that might be. But talk
to me about how the Capital Police chief is hired
and to whom they report and take orders.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, and you're you're absolutely right about what you just
you just mentioned. We do statutory security details for the
leadership before on the House and the Senate side, and
then others based on the threat. So you're actually right there.
So the Capitol Police chief, and it's interesting, it's not
like any other police chief in the country. The I
report to a Capitol Police Board. They're the one that hire,

(06:04):
hire and fire me. We'll get into that too. They're
the ones that really have the hiring authority, but they
only do it with the approval of Senate leadership and
House leadership. Uh So, when I was first hired, you
had let's see, Schumer was over on the for the
chief's position. Schumer was over on the Senate side, and

(06:25):
Pelos who was on the House side, and they both
had to approve my hiring for the position. So you
go through and what's interesting to understand is the Capitol
Police Board is made up of for individuals the House
and Senate sergeant arms who are considered to be the
lead law enforcement agent for the House and for the
for the and one for the Senate. So when you
think of the chief as the top law enforcement official

(06:46):
for the legislative branch, I'm sorry, when you think of
the chief as the top law enforcement official for the
legislative branch. That's not the case. The Senate and the
House starge Arms actually are are above me. The third
person in the Capitol Police Board is the art contect
to the Capitol, and then the fourth person is the
Chief of Police. The three people that are politically appointed,
the House and Senate sarge arms, they are expected the Capitol,

(07:08):
all have a vote on how things go for the
Capitol Police and they control everything from some schedules, which
doors we cover, which equipment we can use. If I
want to get my officer's tasers, I had to go
to the Capitol Police Board and get approval, and then
I had to go to my oversight committee and get
approval for them. If I wanted to deploy fencing, I
got to go to the Capitol Police Board. If I

(07:29):
want to everything, pretty much all operations has to be
approved by the Capital of Police boards. That just gives
you a little bit of an idea what I'm dealing
with as the chief. It's very political. It's very political
because they the House and Senate sergeant Arms, who carry
mostly weight, don't want to do anything that's going to
upset their congressional leader. So we may be having a

(07:51):
hearing on the Supreme Court justice being nominated, and I
want to put up certain offencing. Well, one side may
want no fencing put up so protesters can come in,
you know, proms or you know the other side, and
he wanting to shut down all the buildings at public entry.
So we don't think.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's going to be a good segue into our next
discussion point. Our guest is Stephen Sund who was the
Chief of Police of the Capitol Police on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, that fateful day. We'll talk about his perspective,
which I bet you haven't heard and may be surprised
by coming up. Stephen Sund is our guest. He's a

(08:29):
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 and
Homeland Security from the Naval Postgraduate School. This guy is

(08:52):
thoughtful about strategy and operations and logistics in law enforcement.
It's what he's devoted his life too. This isn't somebody
who rolls through the ranks because they checked the right
box that they weren't a white male. He is, in
fact a white male. This is a guy who, by
all accounts, and I think he has demonstrated cares deeply

(09:13):
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
you know it of January sixth?

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I will, and I think your listeners will definitely be
surprised about what they're about to hear because a lot
of people will hear about Trump offering National Guard and
what happened to the Nation 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 tick you back

(09:56):
to the Sunday before January sixth. January third, it 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 into session, we do all the swearing
ends of the members of Congress, so it's a big
damp on the Capitol hill. I had been kind of
watching the crowd sides that were coming in, and mind you,

(10:19):
the intelligence I was getting, and 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 billings 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 that

(10:41):
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 session of excuse me, a
joint session of Congress it took a lot of my
personnel inside building. So I'd gone over to the Senate

(11:03):
the House Sergeant Arms. I'm acquired by federal law. This
is another interesting thing. If I want to bring in
any assistance for my officers, any federal assistance, whether it's
be a National Guard f any federal assistance, I have
to buy law its 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.

(11:25):
Guy by the name of Paul Irving, who I knew.
He carried most of the weight. He was the big,
heavy hitter. Everyone kind of listened to him on the
Capitol Police Board. I know this would be a sensitive
topic for him, but I went over to ask for
National Guard support, specifically, just for the preiter 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

(11:47):
it specifically because he said he didn't like the optics
of the National Guard standing a line with the Capitol
in the background. And I think that was because he
felt is his boss, his main boss, Speaker Pelosi would
have gotten upset about it, and he also said the
intelligence and supported 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

(12:08):
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 1 (12:16):
Can you give us a time frame again? When when
was this conversation?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Roughly, this conversation was on Monday, January third, three days
before January seven.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Okay, so plenty of time to muster troops if you need.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Them, 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 with Capitol Police. Who eaves 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. It's prepared. So he refers me
over to Mike Stinger, who's now the chairman of the

(12:48):
Capitol Police board and he became the chairman on that day.
I went over to his office. Mike Stinger 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 giving heads up on 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

(13:09):
and said he do you know I was coming over,
said irving, and told him, but anyway, he wouldn't He
wouldn't approve it. He said, you know, why don'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 told him I can call
General Walker, but that's still not going to help us

(13:29):
if we're having, you know, issues on the perimeter. But
he said, I got a run out. He's going to
the swearing in of members of Congress, and he said,
that's that's 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 chief's
approaches me and says. We received a call from Carol Corman.

(13:49):
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 Dad
if we were going to be requesting the National Guard
for January six Now I had just been denied twice
my request for the use of National Guard on January sixth,
and by law, I had to tell him to tell

(14:12):
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 Pentagon had offered National Guard. I had to turn
it down. I've been denied twice by the House and
Senate Sergeant Arms. So coming into January sixth, twelve fifty eight,
I'm in the command center. We're working with the pipe
bomb that had we started dealing with down at the

(14:35):
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
watchmanager showing me some pictures of the pipe bomb. When
somebody says we have a large crowd approaching our west front.
To look up, but we have cameras. There's two roadways

(14:57):
coming up toward the west front, right next to the
reflecting pool, Pennsylania Avenue, Maryland Avenue. Coming up to two circles.
I see a couple of hundred people at each of
the circles grew up approaching our fence line and some
of the people in the group got very confrontational and
physical with the officers very quickly. I've handled lots of protests.
I've seen lots of you know, where the marchers come

(15:18):
up to the line and the gate, and we'll usually
have ten fifteen minutes of back and forth where they're
yelling and stuff like that before it 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
were in the in the crowd. So I look down,
that's twelve fifty three. I see what's going on. I

(15:41):
you know, having come from DC Police, I reached over
to dcent Police and said, 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 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
twenty one. They changed it and allows the chiefs calling resources.

(16:02):
That I having to go through 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. I
need federal resources now, I need permission to call in

(16:24):
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
sitting 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
the crowd's getting starting to move on the Capitol. I

(16:45):
So I call Mike singer the Senate sergeon Arms call
him immediately and say, hey, you know we're getting overrun again.
He has the liais I'm sitting right behind me. I
need a 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 means
mean he's gonna run Speaker Pelosi and get right back
to me. He said, let's wait to hear from Paul Irving.
I made eleven more phone calls to the two of them,

(17:07):
seventy one minutes before I finally got approval. At two
nine pm to fourteen pm, the crowd breaks the first
window and starts climbing in the Capitol. Think about that.
It took eighty one minutes for that crowd to fight
its way up to the Capitol and break the first window,
and for seventy one of those minutes, I was repeatedly
denied bringing in any federal resources for my men and women.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I'm going to ask you to hold right there. It's
a perfect spot, yep. It continues with former Capital Chief
Stephen sound the chief of the Capitol Police, on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, with Stephen Sound. He's our guest telling

(17:51):
his story. And we were now in the middle of
the afternoon. You've waited over an hour, You've met a
number of calls. The situation is turning in your estimation.
Are the people who are beginning to approach the capital?

(18:13):
Do you suspect that any of those 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 2 (18:27):
So are you asking like at the time or are
you asking now that I reflect back on it.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
I'm glad you asked. I guess both would be important
to know.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, So at the time, all I was thinking about
is how do we get my officers some assistants. They
were they were getting their rear ends handed to them,
and I need to get them some assistants real quick.
And I was just dumbfounded at 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

(18:58):
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 to 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

(19:20):
knows 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 h Cherry Boston parade paper even
something like that. We we still have you'll put together

(19:41):
some of these plain closed teams that oftentimes are 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, the can you know, respond to the
suspecial package quickly to start making assessments. So it wouldn't

(20:01):
I wouldn't have been surprised to think, okay, we had
some some plain closed assets in the in the crowd.
But you know, as I began to do my research,
and you know, I literally got stripped out of my
office the very next day and I hopefully we have
time to get to that. And I literally sat at
home and I had people come out of the woodwork.
I had whistle blowers come out and started pushing information
to me, and found out that the FBI had been

(20:24):
receiving information just prior to January sixth 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 seemed to seem
to get higher. So you know, and I found this
in the aftermat that there at one point they were
tracking nineteen people that were on their domestic terrorists list

(20:46):
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 going to be tracking them with agents.
If they think somebody comes in, they know they have
a flight coming in, or that they're gonna 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,

(21:08):
I suspect you're going to have significant resource in the
crowd watching them. Uh. So that's where I based my
my opinion on. Now, Christopher Ray has come out and
said that there was a number of what they call
confidential human sources chs is in the crowd. Some people
have said the CHS is, we're the ones watching the
uh their domestic terrorist targets. I don't buy that. That's

(21:29):
not what I consider the good police work, because you
can only trust the CHS so much. But that's where
I always base my opinion on that. You know, one
I would have been surprised 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,

(21:51):
that's definitely not what they're supposed to be doing. And
that is, you know, contrary to the oath of oath
they take.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
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 denied repeatedly in advance? Why
am I denied while you know, just to blatant that
while my officers are under attack, And then I run

(22:30):
into problems with the with the Pentagon. Finally once I
do get approval approving my request, and now we find
out that there's probably some influence coming from General Millie
on on that 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,

(22:51):
this really, you know, could make a really interesting conspiracy
theory novel when you look at what was going on
in that aspect, and you know 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 yeah, I mean, you know your listeners

(23:16):
probably would be surprised. And when I activated muchel laid
the New Jersey State Police made it before the DC
National Guard coming down to the DC National 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 once all the fighting was over. And remember
I told you well when I called, when I finally

(23:36):
got in touch with the Pentagon, the Pentagon wanted me
on a conference call. This was bright on two thirty
four pm. They wanted me on a conference call to
then find out why I'm requesting National Guard. I think
that would have been fairly self evident with anybody watching
this on TV. But I'm on the phone with a
guy mate by the name of Lieutenant General Walter Pyot,

(23:58):
also on the phone with me as Mayor Bounser Chief
of Police for the DC Police, Robert Conti, the director
of Emergency Management for DC, a number of 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 whistleblower on my behalf and I told him,

(24:18):
I said, I need a National Guard support immediately. This
is a life and death situation. They've now gotten into
the Capitol. We're battling to keep him out of the capital.
And he tells me the exact same thing Paul Irving
told me, I don't like the optic of the National
Guards standing aligne with capital in the background. I was
dumbfound I'm hearing the exact same thing. So you know,
I'm wondering is there was some talking points behind this.

(24:40):
I repeatedly, I'm begging him, almost at Pears and the
marriage co Mountain said this. I was almost at Peers,
begging him to send me resources, and kept hearing this
over and over, and he said, his recommendation is to
that that I in 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 Dab and I had

(25:01):
to get on the phone.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
It's uh, it's so frustrating. I mean, I think in
many ways, I look at what 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, who did little or nothing and relatively speaking,

(25:30):
and ended up in prison. I just think of this
as horrible as Richard Nixon or as Gerald Ford referred
to the next administration. It feels like a long national nightmare,
and it's extremely, extremely disturbing. And I believe you don't
have to and I'm not saying you do or don't.
I believe that the various forces were at work here

(25:50):
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 segment.
Stephen Sundays our guest. He was a Capital City police
chief on January the Capitol Police chief on January sixth,

(26:14):
twenty twenty one. Stephen Sunday is our guest. He was
the police chief of the Capitol 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

(26:35):
note to go back to that so that I do
make time for you. So go ahead at the floor
is yours?

Speaker 2 (26:41):
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.
Once they get off their bus, the fighting is over.
You know, we've got everything, everything's secured. I brought in

(27:01):
seventeen law enforcement agencies, seventeen hundred police officers. That's all
taken care of. What do they do. They line up
with all their riote 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 bid 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,

(27:25):
we're briefing members of Congress. Now, now, mind you, that
evening I talked to Speaker Pelosi three times. First time
brought around five thirty five, I'd gone over to 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

(27:45):
up in the fan center getting things under control. But
once we could, I went over to brief him. When
I briefed him of when we can get them back
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 our
daughter that was with their Speaker Pelosi, which he's saying,
I take responsibility. But and you'll see some of this
that that I talk about, And there's a video of

(28:07):
me with Pence and her getting a call from Pence,
and that's one of the calls. So I talked to him.
I talked to her three times. So the next day
we're briefing my oversight. We're 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. This is right on one o'clock
in the afternoon, is getting ready to go on national

(28:28):
TV and call for my resignation. I said, okay. My
general counsel and my chief administrative officers, you know, said hey,
let's go in your office. We'll watch it there. Gave
my wife a little heads up, went in, watched it
and it was 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,

(28:49):
you know, what are you gonna do about the security
figures up on Capitol Hill. She says, that's a great question.
We're going to do an after action study, which would
have been smart if she'd just stopped there. But then
she's 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 he failed. I'm trying to think exactly

(29:11):
what she said, but you could tell she studies 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 of leadership at
the top of the Capitol. Police calls me out by name,
then tells the American public and I haven't even called

(29:33):
her since this curve, which is a lie, and then
calls for my resignation. You know, I sat and talked
to my wife. I was hading stuff for thirty six hours.
I was shell shocked. I said, you know, fine, I
submitted 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

(29:56):
from all my computer access and was to move out
of my office immediately. So over that weekend I actually
was moving everything at my office and has never stepped
back and foot in that office again. Nobody has talked
to me. 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, nothing like that.

(30:18):
So so I agree there was there 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 straphangers, people that just kind
of followed along, looked at the crowd, went in, didn't
do anything, didn't assault the officers at all.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
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 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

(30:57):
come out. If you look at some of the recent
hearing and reports, Congress has said, if the Sergeant at
Arms had approved Sun's request for dashguard support on January third,
chances are the capital have never been breached. And then
in December seventeenth, twenty twenty four, under Chairman Very Louder
Route their last report that they did. Now that I
think the committee's coming back again. Their last report exonerates

(31:21):
me by name. But I'm still fighting to get the retirement.
My retirement was stripped all you know, all benefits and
everything like that. It was immediately stripped. Yeah, oh yeah, yep, yeah,
I was only a few months away from me, totally
totally vested, and I do believe if the facts have

(31:41):
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 has exonerated by name, which
is which is interesting. But I'm still working with the committee,
still working with Chairman louder Milk, you know, working to
get some executive branch support to have them look at

(32:04):
my case to see about, you know, returning whatever benefits
may have been stripped from me.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
How many years in law enforcement, total of thirty.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
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 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

(32:36):
all my phone records, my transcripts, my emails, they have everything,
and I just find that that interesting that you know
I'm the one targeted, but you know we'll fight. I
know the truth is, the truth is coming out, and
that's more of the truth comes out, and the better
it looks for me.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Lives are destroyed in this manner. You're not going to
allow your life to be destroyed because you are 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,

(33:15):
and that is, you know, sometimes slapping a pejorative tag
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 because you're prone to

(33:38):
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 Faul she's laughing at your funeral. So I think

(33:58):
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. And I

(34:21):
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,

(34:42):
I consider this to be a major calamity, 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, I have a couple more questions.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
I absolutely have to.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Chief. Stephen sund is our guest s U. N. D.
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 has giving an interview now. 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

(35:31):
had a lot of guys how big is the Capital
Police Force?

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Capitol Police Force? When when I was there, a lot
of people are kind of surprised by It's one nine
hundred and sixty three officers with a budget of about
four hundred and sixty three million dollars. It comes out
to me about the twenty fifth department in the country.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
My son's 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 a 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

(36:12):
done that in a long time, And I mean it's significant.
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

(36:36):
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

(36:58):
from blunt force trun but that you had a number
of officers who committed suicide. They took their own life.
Their lives were not taken by the protesters. Can you
speak to that.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Absolutely. You've got again a lot of different questions there.
So technically, there was one officer whose death was 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 walve
some of the fighting on the West Front. He had
been sprayed with pepper spray. At one point the media

(37:32):
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 between nine and ten, was walking
with a group of officers. We now have the capital
under control. We've got a bunch of officers on the perimeter,

(37:54):
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. Uh to go get a I
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, you there was like,
you know, he was completely unconscious. He went over to

(38:16):
GW Hospital where they identified that he had uh what
appeared to be some type of a neurological issue at
the base of his brain stem uh 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

(38:38):
concluded in the autopsy that he passed away with what
he said were natural causes UH, and he had a
double stroke at the base of his brain stem.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
UH.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Later on the same medical examiner in 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 right. 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

(39:07):
point of view. If you have somebody that's on duty
uh in conducting their their line of duty and dies,
that's gonna be a line of duty death. And this
was a line of duty death. So that was a
situation with Brian sick Nick. Then what you had is
on that Saturday, which would have been the ninth, January ninth,

(39:28):
you had the first of a series of suicides. UH.
First by the name of Howard's 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 watch manager came in and
passed on that that news to me.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
UH.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
The person who was acting who they made acting chief,
and that's the whole story in itself was at home
and I had to call her and tell her, you know,
the news, and tell her to come on in because, uh,
you know, we 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,

(40:08):
my thought is, you know, 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

(40:30):
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 okay to get counseling. You know
a lot of agencies wait counseling available to the officers.
I get concerned that, you know, it's it's always it's

(40:51):
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 are thinking Okay, now we've had his
suicide declared line of duty. Jeff Smith, who is with
DC Police, committed suicide. I want to say, imprised 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

(41:13):
determined to be a line of duty death. I get
concerned that, you know, 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 line of duty death funeral. It just
raises for me. It raises concerns when they go through

(41:37):
that that you know, this may be an option for him. So,
you know, i't 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 1 (41:58):
It's unfortunate that an individual is in a position where
that does make sense to them, and it's a good
reminder of how difficult this job is and why it
is deserving of respect. Steven Son, is there anything we
did not get to? I got about a minute that
you wanted to offer up before we close.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
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 my wife was like, he sure, this
is what you want to do, because I was reliaving
this for fourteen hours a day every day, and then

(42:42):
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
January sixth could have been prevented if they wanted they

(43:03):
listen to me. But if so many people had just
done their job the way they're supposed to, we wouldn't
be here talking right now. So I ended up putting
it together. It's now been referred to on Capitol Hill
as the Defentative 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

(43:26):
got from 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 Barry Laudermuk'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 Slight
Committe wouldn't let me testify in public. But you're gonna

(43:47):
hear a little you know, you'll read a little bit
about the Slight Committee and some of the issues they had.
But no, I appreciate you mentioned it. I appreciate your
interest in the in the story, there's there's still a
lot more there.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Thank you. For your service. Good Sir Stevenson and Capitol
Police Chief on January.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Sixth, Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
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