WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. Capitol police are fighting.
One officer was killed and another was injured when a driver crashed into a barricade Friday afternoon. The attack occurs after officers have been invaded and injured when a violent crowd of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, breaking down insufficient barriers and making their way near lawmakers. One officer died and another committed suicide.
There are many officers who are considering early retirement, top leaders have resigned and those in office are facing increasingly criticism. Security concerns about the events of the past four months may alter not only the functioning of the department, but whether historically public lands may remain open.
Capitol Police union leader said officers are “downsizing” after Friday’s death of Officer Billy Evans, who was in the force for 18 years. He was run over at a Capitol entrance by a man who, according to investigators, suffered from delusions and suicidal thoughts.
Evans’ death comes after Officer Brian Sicknick, who was among hundreds of officers trying to fight rioters without the necessary equipment or planning, died after the January 6 riot. Officer Howard Liebengood committed suicide shortly afterwards.
Hundreds of officers are considering retiring or finding work elsewhere, union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement. “They continue to work even as we quickly approach a crisis of morale and strength,” he said, noting that officers are dealing with “massive amounts of forced overtime.”
Dozens of officers were injured on Jan. 6 and others have lost their jobs during an internal investigation into the department’s response, including the officer who shot a 35-year-old woman while she and others were crowding in. a barricaded door. This further depleted a force that has more than 200 vacancies, approximately 10% of its authorized force level.
During the months following the insurgency, many agents have routinely worked 12 days or more to protect the building during Trump’s January 20 investiture and removal of Biden.
“This starts the rubbish and continues to provide a level of uncertainty and concern about the workplace and what’s going on there,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who chairs a subcommittee overseeing Capitol police funding. . “And I think that’s very personal for many of us who have come to really love and respect the Capitol police even more than we already had, because of what they did on January 6, and they immediately gave- turn it around to make sure that the inauguration was safe ”.
Acting leader Yogananda Pittman received a vote of no-confidence from the union in February, reflecting widespread distrust among members of the base. Pittman was an assistant intelligence chief during the riot and admitted he did not see any FBI assessments the day before warning of “war” on the Capitol.
Steven Sund, who resigned in January as head of the agency in an examination of whether police were properly prepared for the riot, told The Associated Press that the officers he had spoken to were “on the verge.”
The pain and crises that have surrounded Capitol police are also part of broader social forces that have tested the country, Sund said.
“There’s the impact of the pandemic on the American psyche,” Sund said. “There’s a lot going on on social media and a lot of action in reference to law enforcement actions. Law enforcement has been attacked in cities across the country. So there’s a lot going on. they prepare and make 2020 and 2021 a bit unique ”.
Capitol Police is not a typical police agency. The approximately 2,000 officers are solely responsible for protecting Congress: its members, visitors, and facilities, an area of about 16 acres.
The department dates back to the early 1800s, after President John Quincy Adams called for the creation of a police force to help protect the building after incidents there. They now have an operating budget of $ 460 million.
The driver of Friday’s incident, 25-year-old Noah Green, was shot by officers shortly after getting out of the vehicle with a knife, authorities said. Green later died in a hospital. No connection is known between the insurrection and Green, who in online publications described himself as controlling governmental and supervised thinking.
There are new concrete barriers around the checkpoint where Evans and a colleague were guarding north of the Capitol. But the attack underscores that the Capitol will always be a target, said retired Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, who chaired a working group who made several security recommendations after the insurrection.
“It’s the most important building in America, because it’s the seat of our democracy,” Honoré said Sunday on “This Week” on ABC. “If this building and the people who operate in it do not work, we no longer have democracy. And whatever price we have to pay to protect it, we have to do it. “
The working group called for a renewed push to fill the force’s 233 vacancies and for Congress to fund 350 new jobs and new fencing systems and other infrastructure. The task force also wants Congress to give the Capitol police chief a new authority to seek National Guard support in a crisis. Sund has alleged that leaders of the three-member Capitol police board delayed their calls for help from the Guard on Jan. 6, which former board members denied.
Papathanasiou, the union’s president, said he supported Honoré’s recommendations and had met with him and his team on Thursday, the day before Evans’ death.
“As I explained to him, these improvements are critical, but our first priority must be to keep our existing officers,” Papathanasiou said. “There are immediate steps Congress can take to address this.”
Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Virginia Democrat, has been in contact with the Liebengood family since her death. He called for a program to encourage “peer-to-peer” discussions between officers about the trauma they had suffered, separate from the mental health professionals convened to meet with the officers.
“I just want to make sure we’re caring for Capitol police officers, because that’s the constant in all of this,” he said. “We do what we do, the first order of work is not a physical structure, but we make sure we are in charge of the officers.”
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A trader reported from Houston. Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.