A befuddled tourist was able to walk through an open gate into the Capitol Visitors Center construction site — minutes after Capitol police acting chief Christopher McGaffin apologized to Congress for allowing an even more serious breach the week before, sources tell The Examiner.
Capitol police acknowledged in a statement postedon their Web site that the unnamed tourist was trying “a shortcut” and walked through an open gate at the East Front Plaza.
The gate was open “to facilitate positioning official vehicles,” the statement said. The tourist was escorted out of the construction site.
What Capitol Police didn’t say in their statement was that the tourist was stopped by construction workers and not by Capitol police officers. U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., confirmed the information in a conversation with The Examiner.
“The civilian employees seem to be our first line of defense,” Moran said. “Maybe we ought to offer them bonuses for stopping intruders — $100 for if the guy’s just lost, $1,000 if he’s a felon.”
A congressional source said that the tourist walked through the gate at the same time that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was touring Congress under heavy security.
The breach also occurred within an hour of McGaffin facing down angry members of the House Appropriations Committee, trying to explain how an armed man got all the way to the House Flag Office before being tackled by two office workers.
McGaffin apologized to the House members and said he would ask the Inspector General’s Office to review his agency’s conduct.
The acting chief had told the public last week that he didn’t know whether Carlos Greene was arrested by his officers or civilians.
But U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., told reporters Tuesday that McGaffin knew from the first moments of the incident that his officers hadn’t made the arrest.
McGaffin also told the public that Greene got into the construction site by “slamming” his sports utility vehicle into a parked Capitol police car.
But LaHood, Moran and one staffer familiar with Tuesday’s briefing say that the security tapes show that Greene barely scraped the car.
Instead, the car was parked inthe wrong position and Greene easily slid by, the tapes show.
Moran, who has been a steady critic of the Capitol Police, said Wednesday the department desperately needed an overhaul.
“I think we need a cultural change in the whole force,” he said.
