top officials responsible for security
on the day of last month's deadly riot
at the capitol building have appeared to
contradict each other during a u.s
congressional hearing
the bipartisan hearings are looking at
how security contingencies failed to
respond adequately
and why it took hours to call out the
national guard
so far the authorities have charged more
than 200 people over the riot
some are linked to far-right groups
three of the four officials testifying
resigned after the riot
which disrupted congressional
ratification of president biden's
election victory
stephen sund the former chief of the u.s
capitol police said his officers were
outnumbered by the insurrectionists who
deployed
dangerous weapons against law
enforcement on january the 6th
he said he believed there had been
intelligence failings leading up to the
day
these criminals came prepared for war
they came with their own radio system to
coordinate the attack
and climbing gear and other equipment to
defeat the capital's security features
i am sickened by what i witnessed that
day our officers fought valiantly
using batons shields chemical munitions
and pepper ball guns to hold back the
attackers
capitol police and responding law
enforcement agencies showed tremendous
restraint
by not using their firearms which would
have likely led to a more chaotic
situation
and a possible mass casualty incident no
civilian law enforcement agency
to include the united states capitol
police is
trained or equipped to repel an
insurrection of thousands of individuals
focused on breaching a building at all
costs
i am extremely proud and appreciative of
the capitol police officers
the metropolitan police department and
the other law enforcement agencies that
came to our assistance
a clear lack of accurate and complete
intelligence across several federal
agencies contributed to this event
and not poor planning by the united
states capitol police
but the former u.s house
sergeant-at-arms paul irving denied the
authorities had rejected having the
national guard deployed at the u.s
capitol because it might look bad
saying the intelligence did not warrant
the troops presence
my use of the word optics has been
mischaracterized in the media
let me be clear optics as portrayed
in the media played no role whatsoever
in my decisions about security
and any suggestion to the contrary is
false
safety was always paramount when making
security plans for january 6th
we did discuss whether the intelligence
warranted having troops at the capitol
that was the issue and the collective
judgment
at that time was no the intelligence did
not
warrant that if the chief or any other
security leader had expressed
doubt about our readiness without the
national guard i would not have
hesitated to request them
chief sund senate sergeant armstanger
and i were confident
in the chief's plan and i did whatever i
could to ensure that chief son had the
support
needed to prepare and execute that
security plan
paul irving there the bbc's washington
correspondent gary o'donoghue gave us
his take on today's striking evidence
the the testimony there from stephen
sund who's who resigned as the capital
hill police chief after january the 6th
was striking
i mean he said at one point that they
had planned for a
for a protest a first amendment protest
and what they got was a military a
style assault on the capital he said
there'd been an intelligence failure
that the intelligence about what was
planned hadn't reached them
and that he was critical also of the
extent to which
the national guard was deployed quickly
enough to the capital to help them out
so
there's a whole range of issues here
that they're looking at
but those are among some of the most
important ones and is the heart of these
hearings
getting to the bottom of what went wrong
in security failings that day
yeah there's a few issues one is the
intelligence in the run-up
uh to january the sixth who knew what
when was it communicated properly
was it accurate did it give any kind of
sense of the scale
of what was being planned and the
organization behind what was being
planned
what was the extent of the preparation
that went into it
beforehand was enough national guard
members
in place ready to help out if not who
had blocked those requests
and then as the thing unfolded itself
what was the kind of command and control
situation why did it take for example
two and a half hours after the national
guard was authorized by the pentagon
for them to show up at capitol hill so
there are some big questions and of
course
uh this was the first breach of the
capital by violent
uh insurrectionists if you might call
that since the british
attacked the us capital back at the
beginning of the 19th century
and five people died on that day and so
this is something that is
absolutely crucial for the american
state to understand and to try and
prevent happening again
more than 200 people have been arrested
so far over this ride our investigation
is very much still ongoing
oh yeah absolutely i mean they are
sifting through
you know acres and acres of video
footage and photographs and online
posts and all that kind of thing they've
issued
charges against a number of people
associated with
one of those right-wing groups the oath
keepers a number of their members have
been charged
and the charges range you know a huge
range of charges trespass upwards really
what's not happened is no one's been
charged for example in connection with
the death of the
the capital police officer brian signing
who succumbed to his
injuries the days afterwards no one
charged on that score
uh yet and and no one really charged
with some of the real high crimes that
that have been associated with what
happened on january the 6th i.e
insurrection okay we go donahue then