Capitol police chief says ‘nothing of great concern’ in DC area ahead of January 6 anniversary

The chief of the US Capitol Police does not expect any major disturbances near the Capitol on the anniversary of the 6 January assault.

Law enforcement is “paying attention” to a planned rally outside Washington DC’s Central Detention Facility, which holds defendants linked to the attack, but “really, nothing is of great concern to us at this point,” said Chief Tom Manger.

Joined by the entire Capitol Police board at press conference on Tuesday, the chief said that the force is “stronger and better prepared to carry out its mission today than it was before January 6 last year”.

In the months following the riots, fuelled by former President Donald Trump’s baseless narrative of election fraud and conspiracy theories to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, the federal agency charged with protecting the Capitol has sought to “fix failures” that impeded its response, Chief Manger said.

The agency has “completed or addressed” 90 recommendations from nearly a dozen reports offering more than 100 recommendations on needed improvements and reforms, he said.

The chief said his agency has introduced in-person briefings and daily operational briefings via phones provided to officers, “formalised” the process for requesting and receiving aid from other jurisdictions, and received more equipment for the agency’s civil disturbance unit. He said the agency also has provided safety and wellness initiatives for officers, including “trauma-informed care specialists”.

He also defended the agency when questioned about an incident involving a House aide in a nonpartisan office who brought a gun through a security checkpoint. The aide was stopped, though an image of the firearm that passed through a security screening was initially missed.

Meanwhile, the agency collected 9,600 credible threats to members of Congress in 2021, a figure that has steadily risen each year, according to Chief Manger. In 2020, the agency reported 8,000.

“These are phone calls, emails, things we find social media – they come in a number of ways,” he said. “The ones that concern us the most are the ones where we have had previous contact with the individual who’s making a threat and we’re concerned about ... their actions … more than just an anonymous email or something.”

The brief press conference from top brass ahead of the anniversary of the riots also follows revived criticism from Republican lawmakers who have accused Democrats of failing to protect the Capitol in the months after the attack.

“The majority party seems no closer to answering the central question of how the Capitol was left so unprepared and what must be done to ensure it never happens again,” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote in a letter to Republican colleagues on 2 January. “Instead, they are using it as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country.”

A bipartisan report on the attack prepared by the Senate Homeland Security Committee last year found widespread security failures among Capitol police and law enforcement on the Capitol grounds.

Capitol intelligence “knew from online posts of a plot to breach the Capitol and posts that contained Capitol Complex maps of the tunnel systems, yet did not convey the full scope of known information to [Capitol Police] leadership, rank-and-file officers or law enforcement partners,” according to the report.

More than 140 officers were injured as they confronted a mob as it breached the halls of Congress. A review of police body camera footage found roughly 1,000 instances of assault against law enforcement.

Chief Manger was selected to lead the agency in July 2021 following a term from acting chief Yogananda Pittman, who took over the role from Steven Sund after he resigned the day after the attack.