Who ordered National Guard troops to move to parking garage? Capitol Police denies all responsibility
After the major public relations fiasco on January 21 that saw members of the National Guard being asked to hotfoot it out of the Dirkson Senate building in Washington for their rest breaks to a nearby parking garage, the Capitol Police said the department was not responsible for the order.
“I want to assure everyone that, with the exception of specific times on Inauguration Day itself while the swearing-in ceremonies were underway, the United States Capitol police did not instruct the National Guard to vacate the Capitol Building facilities,” said Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman in a statement posted on the department’s website on January 22 morning. His statement added: “And on Inauguration Day, the Guard was notified and encouraged to reoccupy the spaces in the Capitol and CVC at 2 pm.”
There is a very high likelihood that whoever is found responsible for the orders will possibly be fired or demoted and become the official scapegoat of the outrage pouring in about the mistreatment of the National Guardsmen. Thus, the blame game appears to have already started.
Pittman’s statement contradicts what the National Guard officials had to say about the parking garage move that saw the troops being ordered out of the Senate around 5 pm on Thursday, January 21. “As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area,” the National Guard Bureau statement had read. “They were temporarily relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage with heat and restroom facilities. We remain an agile and flexible force to provide for the safety and security of the Capitol and its surrounding areas.”
Instead of being able to rest up between 12-hour shifts inside the building they were protecting, the troops had to go to the location, a cramped parking garage, which was about a half-mile away, in the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Office Building. The garage had limited restroom facilities and because the space was so small, it was an easy place to contract COVID-19, increasing the risk to the soldiers.
“We were told we had 25 minutes to get everything out of the basement,” said one National Guard soldier speaking to the press anonymously. “We had to move everything. That included all the gear, computers, riot gear. Everything had to be figured out immediately. A lot of soldiers were resting in there, catching a nap between shifts.”
Before the move, they had been using the basement of the Dirksen building for briefings, eating, and for naps between shifts. The basement area is home to one of the largest cafeterias on Capitol Hill and is a key thoroughfare for lawmakers and staffers moving from the office buildings to the Senate floor. The basement had been used as a combination of resting, staging, briefing, eating and sleeping area for the hundreds of troops keeping the Capitol safe after the January 6 riots.
National Guard Bureau spokesman Wayne Hall had said that the move was made without the knowledge of lawmakers, many of whom spoke up once they got to know about the situation. “Our understanding is that the unfortunate request for the National Guard to be relocated was made to the Capitol Police by a couple of staffers, without the knowledge of the Congressional members,” he said in a statement to the press. He added that the National Guard “appreciates the great number of Congressional members who expressed concern and assisted in moving our National Guard men and women into appropriate Capitol spaces upon hearing they had been relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage last night. Many of them offered their own personal offices and conference rooms to the National Guard; we are grateful.”
Lawmakers have also called for an investigation into who made the decisions that forced them out of the Dirkson Senate building. Pittman, the acting Capitol Police chief, in his statement, said that his department was now working with Congress to find “appropriate accommodations” for the troops. “Over the past several days, the U.S. Capital Police has been working tirelessly with its Congressional stakeholders to identify appropriate accommodations across the entire Capitol complex for their use,” Pittman wrote. “It was brought to our attention early today that facility management with the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Office Building reached out directly to the National Guard to offer use of its facilities.”
According to reports, the order for the troops to not stay in the building while they were not guarding it was because of fears of COVID-19 transmission. Only some of the troops have been able to get the first round of vaccines but not everyone. Some of the guardsmen have also been quarantined and there is a strong possibility that there are already around 50 to 100 positive cases of COVID-19 among those guarding the Capitol.
"Knowing we have all shared the same room several hours a day, of course we are worried about COVID and being an extremely soft target for someone taking a cheap shot at soldiers,” said one soldier on conditions of anonymity to the press. He added that "all of the Capitol police" who they had been working with on guard shifts said they "knew nothing about it and apologized" while adding that "the order didn’t come from them”.
On January 22 morning, in his statement, Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman confirmed that the troops were all out of the garage. “As of this morning, all Guardsmen and women have been relocated to space within the Capitol Complex. The Department is also working with the Guard to reduce the need for sleeping accommodations by establishing shorter shifts, and will ensure they have access to the comfortable accommodations they absolutely deserve when the need arises.” According to Air Force Maj. Matthew Murphy, a National Guard Bureau spokesman, "the troops will take their breaks near Emancipation Hall going forward” and "are going to hotel rooms or other comfortable accommodations at the end of their shifts”.