There is more to the two recent security breaches at the U.S. Capitol than the mere fact that individual police officers were obviously not where they needed to be. Tempting as it might be to scapegoat individual officers, however, the entire Capitol Police command staff and Congress itself are to blame. Congress has been micromanaging the force, even going so far as to disband its mounted unit last year.
An inspector general probe will determine exactly how an armed 20-year-old Silver Spring man managed to enter the supposedly secure facility through an unlocked door. That door — and many others, including doors leading to underground parking garages — remain unlocked because spoiled but powerful members of Congress have made it clear they don’t want to be inconvenienced in any way.
For example, instead of using underground tunnels to shuttle from their offices to the Capitol for roll call votes and other purposes, members insist on crossing the street — even though reducing the number of open entrances would permit a 25 percent reduction in the nearly 1,700-member force. More open doors mean more security posts to man — and more opportunities to mess up. Remember, the terrorists only have to get it right once in order to gain access for an attack that could devastate the Capitol.
Acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin reportedly apologized to members of the House Appropriations Committee for telling the public that one of his officers subdued Carlos Greene after he stormed the Capitol on Sept. 18, when it was really a civilian construction employee. Last week, a lost pedestrian was spotted inside a Capitol Visitor Center construction zone — again by a construction worker, not by a police officer —allegedly just as Afghani president Hamid Karzai was leaving the building.
Congressional sources call the CVC construction site “a great security sieve” that leaves one of the nation’s most iconic symbols still vulnerable to attack. Lower level officers have repeatedly warned their superiors that they could not ensure the safety of the 10 million people who visit the Capitol annually. If McGaffin was unaware of such concerns, it’s only because, according to Capitol police sources, his closed-door policy does not permit rank-and-file officers to criticize deployment decisions — even when they’re wrong. Predictably, morale in the department is so low that nearly two dozen officers left for other jobs within the past three weeks, with more planning to follow suit.
You can’t blame them. The rules of engagement are still murky for law enforcement officers who have not yet had to confront suicide bombers or military-trained terrorists. If a Capitol Hill police officer on duty at the door in question had made a split-second decision to shoot Greene, nobody could really guarantee that the department, the judicial system or the American public would back him up if the decision proved wrong. And that’s a security problem that no amount of door locks, checkpoints or barriers can solve.
