Capitol Police Chief Sund

Capitol Police Chief Sund

**Steven A. Sund** is an American police officer who served as the tenth chief of the United States Capitol Police. Sund was chief during the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Following the attack, he announced that he would resign, effective January 16, 2021.

Last Monday, Sund said, he began to worry about the Jan. 6 demonstration. “We knew it would be bigger,” Sund said. “We looked at the intelligence. We knew we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent altercations. I had nothing indicating we would have a large mob seize the Capitol.” Sure, there were claims that alt-right instigators had discussed storming the building and targeting lawmakers. But Sund said such threats had surfaced in the past. “You might see rhetoric on social media. We had seen that many times before,” he said. “People say a lot of things online.” Still, he decided to call Irving and Stenger to ask for permission to request that the National Guard be put on emergency standby. Irving didn’t like the idea, Sund said; he said it would look bad because it would communicate that they presumed an emergency. He said he’d have to ask House leaders. AD On the way home that evening, Sund did as Stenger suggested, calling Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the head of the 1,000-member D.C. National Guard, to tell him that he might call on him for help. “If we can get you leaning forward,” Sund said, “how long do you think it would take to get us assistance?” Walker said he thought he could send 125 personnel fairly quickly. Over the weekend, Sund had also conferred with D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III, who also had offered to lend a hand if trouble arose. On Tuesday, Sund said he briefed Irving and Stenger, who said that backup seemed sufficient.

2021-02-23 NYT: “<nowiki> None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred,” former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund told senators who are investigating security failures related to the attack. He called the riot “the worst attack on law enforcement and our democracy that I have seen” and said he witnessed insurrectionists assaulting officers not only with their fists but also with pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flagpoles.

“These criminals came prepared for war,” Chief Sund said.

Chief Sund, Paul D. Irving, the former House sergeant-at-arms, and Michael C. Stenger, his former Senate counterpart, each said they had not seen a report from an F.B.I. field office in Norfolk, Va., that flagged an anonymous social media thread that warned of a looming war at the Capitol despite planning meetings with the bureau and others in federal law enforcement.

They pointed to a breakdown in communication of some of the intelligence. Chief Sund testified he now knows the F.B.I. report had reached the Capitol Police the day before the attack, but he had not personally seen it. He said that a Capitol Police officer assigned to a law enforcement joint terrorism task force received the document the night before the riot and sent it to an intelligence division official on the force.

“It did not go any further than that,” Chief Sund said.

Robert J. Contee, the chief of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, laid the blame for the slow deployment of the National Guard solely on the Defense Department, noting that the Army had expressed reluctance to send in the troops as the violence escalated.

“I was stunned at the response from Department of the Army,” Chief Contee said.

The joint meeting of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Rules and Administration Committee was the first time the public has heard Mr. Sund and Mr. Irving, the top two security officials at the Capitol on the day of the assault. Both resigned after the attack …… (nytimes.com/live/2021/02/23/)

## 4 reading

* [

* nytimes 2021/01/26 capitol-riot-police
* Capitol police chief to resign after pro-Trump mob’s insurrection. In the inquirer.com by Chris Marquette and Lindsey McPherson, CQ-Roll Call, Updated: January 7, 2021

* Outgoing Capitol Police chief: House, Senate security officials hamstrung efforts to call in National Guard. washingtonpost.com - Archiv, Jan 1 - 2021