The newly confirmed D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said

WAMU/DCist / Tyrone Turner

Acting Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said U.S. Capitol Police may have miscalculated and assumed the pro-Trump crowds that gathered in Wednesday wouldn’t turn against law enforcement. Instead, hundreds of Trump supporters overtook the U.S. Capitol in an insurrection that turned deadly.

“I believe that there was a miscalculation on what they were actually going to be dealing with on their part,” Contee said on The Politics Hour on WAMU Friday.

“A lot of these supporters of our president that were out are normally law enforcement supporters, that kind of thing, perhaps there was a miscalculation,” Contee said. “I mean, that would be my guess, that there was a miscalculation in terms of what they would or would not do.

In a statement, Capitol Police say they prepared for First Amendment demonstrations, but it resulted in the USCP getting overrun by insurrectionists. They called it “criminal riotous behavior.”

Contee argued that MPD and the District properly prepared by asking for mutual aid from other law enforcement departments around the region ahead of the event for areas around the city under its jurisdiction.

“If things got bad to the point that we needed those resources, I didn’t want to be on the phone in the middle of a dire incident requesting outside resources to come to work, get ready and respond and to the city,” Contee said. “Those resources… they were here, they were on the ground.”

But MPD didn’t have the authority to go on to the Capitol grounds without being invited, Contee said. He attributed that when explaining why the response Wednesday was so different than the Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice last summer.

“Back in June, when we had the unrest in our city, those resources were here, those are resources as the situation unfolded, the mayor could make specific requests for,” Contee said. “‘I need National Guard. I need, you know, whatever other resources that was available at the time.’ So I think that there’s a distinction here.”

Contee also defended his comments from Thursday that MPD had “no intelligence that suggested there would be a breach of the U.S. Capitol.”

But others have pointed out specific social media and forum posts about the plan, and even news stories detailing what could happen.

On Friday, Contee said his comments were mischaracterized.

“There was no specific intelligence where someone says, ‘Hey, I’m going to place a bomb or I’m going to do this,'” he said on the Politics Hour. “You know, there was no specific intelligence.”

Still, reporters like Fenit Nirappil from the Washington Post, pointed out specific threats noted in an NBC News article.

Contee said he arrived at the Capitol around 1 p.m. and saw pepper spray and munitions being used. That’s when he called Mayor Muriel Bowser and said the District needed a curfew, which was put in for 6 p.m.

He later went to the Police Command Center to orchestrate the response. Contee said the first goal for MPD, after they were invited by USCP to the Capitol, was to clear the building and make sure it was safe for Congress to resume its session confirming the Electoral College vote.

He said more arrests weren’t made early on because they didn’t know if the building was still dangerous, mentioning the shots fired in the Capitol and two bombs found at the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee. He said there were so many unknowns, including the possibility of a life vest bomb or other explosives.

“The first thing we had to do was get in, pushed the people out of the building,” Contee said. “[As] soon as we made it safe, then the decision was made, OK, now let’s start making arrests.”

Contee said MPD is on heightened alert from now through the inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden, and the National Guard will still be available through then.

Wednesday was Contee’s second official day on the job as chief. He was sworn in Tuesday after Bowser selected Contee on December 22, though he still faces a confirmation hearing from the D.C. Council. Former Police Chief Peter Newsham took a job as chief of the Prince William County Police Department in November. Contee joined MPD in 1989 and was most recently the Assistant Chief of the Investigative Services Bureau.

Later in the Politics Hour, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine talked about the law enforcement response to the attack. Kaine said the entire response was very poorly planned, and called for a full investigation.

He talked to Capitol Police officers who say rank and file officers were upset by their leadership. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund will resign as of January 16.

Many officers behaved heroically, Kaine said, including Officer Brian Sicknick, who was injured during the insurrection later died at a hospital. Kaine also criticized officers who took selfies with the rioters.

“There will be people who get commendations and people who will lose their jobs,” Kaine said. “We’re going to learn everything that went right and everything that went wrong and used everything that went wrong to make it better for tomorrow.”

This story was updated to add additional information from NBC News about the threats made prior to Wednesday’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Filed Under: capitol insurrection, robert j contee III, tim kaine, u.s. capitol police,