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Heroes Behind The Badge: Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund Story - Part 1 · Heroes Behind the Badge

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Dennis Collins: Welcome, to Heroes Behind the Badge, we tell real stories about real cops, we
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expose the fake news about police, and we give you the real truth.
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This podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge, the leading voice of the American
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people in support of the men and women in law enforcement, dedicated
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to ending the disastrous movement to defund and defame the police.
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So for those of you who may be hearing about Citizens Behind the Badge for
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the very first time, let me explain a little bit about who we are.
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Citizens Behind the Badge was formed as a 501(c)4 advocacy organization in 2020.
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We are approved by the IRS.
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We serve as the leading voice of the American people in support of the men and women in law enforcement.
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Our mission, to end the disastrous movement to defund and defame the police and ensure that our officers
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receive support and respect that they need and deserve to keep America safe.
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My name is Dennis Collins.
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I'm a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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And let me introduce our Citizens Behind the Badge team.
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First of all, let me introduce Bill Erfurth.
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Bill is a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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He is a retired Miami-Dade police lieutenant with 26 years of experience.
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One of Bill's most interesting and notable assignments was the commander of the tactical narcotics team.
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Under his leadership, that became the most productive team in Miami-Dade police history.
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And was nationally recognized.
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His very final assignment of his career was also as a commander of the multi agency violent crime task force
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for almost 10 years, Bill hosted, along with three of his active duty police colleagues, a radio show
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produced and hosted a radio show called cop net, the police radio
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network, which became nationally syndicated in over a hundred markets.
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He is the executive producer of two documentaries, Heroes Behind
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the Badge, Heroes Behind the Badge, Sacrifice and Survival.
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He also was the technical advisor to Jerry Bruckheimer
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and Michael Bay for Bad Boys 2, and even appeared in the movie.
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Yes, he did, for sure.
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Hello, Mr.
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Bill Erfurth.
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Bill Erfurth: Thank you, Dennis.
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I'm hiring you as my agent.
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Dennis Collins: You can't afford me, but that's okay.
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Alright.
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Okay, alongside Bill, On our podcast will be the founder and president of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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Craig Floyd.
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Now, many of you already know Craig Floyd.
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He is one of law enforcement's strongest advocates.
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He's the founding CEO emeritus of the national law enforcement officer memorial fund under his
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leadership, the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.
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C.
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was built.
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Craig also spearheaded the drive to see one of his dreams come true.
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The dream of a National Law Enforcement Museum became a reality thanks to Craig.
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No one has worked longer or harder than Craig Floyd to support law enforcement and to help change
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America's attitude about the profession and honoring and saving lives.
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Craig Floyd, thank you for your leadership.
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Welcome to the team.
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Craig Floyd: Couldn't be prouder to have spent 34 years leading the
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memorial fund and now, uh, five years, uh, into Citizens Behind the Badge.
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It's a great honor to tell the stories of these, uh, amazing men and women who
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go out every day, risking their life for our safety and for our protection.
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And it's a Pleasure to be here on the podcast with all of you and our special guests today.
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Dennis Collins: We have, uh, before we get to our special guests and you guys are going to love.
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Our special guest before we get to that, though, we, Bill and Craig would like to introduce the podcast
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with kind of a roll call with kind of some of the latest and greatest of what's going on in law enforcement.
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So, uh, Craig, I'll throw it back to you to start off today's roll call.
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Craig Floyd: Yeah, and Bill, I wanted you to be aware of something.
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I think you've seen it, but recently, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, my old organization,
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put out their annual fatality report, uh, how many officers died in the line of duty in 2024.
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It's based on preliminary data, but the numbers are pretty, uh, pretty solid.
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Uh, it said, unfortunately, 147 law enforcement officers across this country died in the line of
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duty last year, and sadly, that was a 25 percent increase over the number of officers who died in 2023.
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I was very saddened to see that report.
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I thought the numbers were moving in the right direction, but, uh, but again, this job is so dangerous.
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We lost 52 officers last year by gunfire.
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That was the number one cause of death.
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46 officers died in traffic related incidents, often the
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most, uh, deadly, uh, incident for law enforcement in this country.
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And one of the things that I'm particularly, uh, concerned about, and I was, uh, with the Memorial Fund
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and I continue to this day, and I think the message needs to get out.
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Too many officers are dying in vehicle crashes.
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All right.
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They have to respond at high rates of speed to emergencies.
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They might be chasing a fleeing suspect.
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Um, but it upsets me to think that many of these officers who die
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were not wearing their seatbelts, about half of them, actually.
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And I'm just interested in your thoughts, having been a cop for so many years.
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I'm sure you were in many of those situations where you're driving at high rates of speed.
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Um, What is the possible reason why a police officer would
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not be wearing their seatbelt knowing the dangers that exist?
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Bill Erfurth: You know, always that comes up and we talk about it at length.
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A lot of cops don't want to wear their seatbelts for two reasons.
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They think it's going to limit their opportunity to get out of the car quickly.
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They need to bail out in a critical situation, a gun fight, something like that.
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The other one is that they feel that the seatbelt itself, especially if you're a right handed shot, is
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going to hinder your ability to draw your weapon, uh, from a seated position while you're buckled in.
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You know, it's interesting that you brought that up because years ago I actually filled in for you in Ohio and
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I sat on the stage with Mike DeWine, the governor of Ohio, and I addressed a huge contingent of law enforcement
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people and I talked about that and I said, you need to wear your seatbelt.
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There's more cops that are killed every year in car accidents than gunfire and I explained to them and
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I used my experiences when I was running the tactical narcotics teams.
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There were countless times where we draw our weapons while we were still buckled in because you didn't have
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the opportunity, you know, we were called the jump out boys and we'd come flying in and, and, uh, do these raids.
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Uh, there were incidents when I was working where we would fire our weapons out of the windows.
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Um, you know, and we, we actually trained that way at the range.
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So it's definitely doable.
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Uh, I never had a problem with it.
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I never could.
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I never had an issue where I didn't feel that my weapon was accessible
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and, uh, I think everybody should definitely wear their seatbelt.
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Craig Floyd: I, I hope all the law enforcement professionals listening to this podcast, uh, take that, uh,
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Uh, in the mind as they, uh, you know, get behind the wheel of their car, please buckle your seatbelt.
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It's going to save your life from, uh, it may be serious injury, but it could kill you.
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And, uh, this is a tough job.
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Uh, take every safety precaution possible.
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Um, as I reflect on this report, uh, 147 officers died in the line of duty last year.
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I can't help but think that when we built the national law enforcement
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officers memorial and dedicated it in 1991, there were 12, 560.
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61 names on that memorial.
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It was less than half filled all the memorial walls, and we thought it would
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be at least 100 years before we ever had to worry about those walls being filled.
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And we hope that they never would be.
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Unfortunately, it took just about 30 years.
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For the walls of the National Memorial to be filled.
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There's now more than 24,000 names, uh, on the memorial today.
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And, uh, sadly with this report, we know there's gonna be hundreds more that will be added.
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This may, uh, during National Police Week.
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Uh, bill.
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Uh, couple other quick stories.
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One came out of Fremont, California, you know, with the defund and defame the police movement.
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We know that thousands of cops left the profession.
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Many retired, many others resigned and went into other professions.
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They were so fed up with all the all the viral, you know, the Nasty things that were being said about them and
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and officers being charged with crimes for simply doing their job They left the profession and so there's a police
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shortage crisis now in this country Uh that we've talked about so much over the last five years And Citizens
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Behind the Badge Fremont, California, their police department has had such a crisis of police officer shortage
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that they're offering a 100,000 cash incentive to lateral transfers, officers that are serving with other departments.
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If they come to Fremont, they get to receive a hundred thousand dollar bonus.
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And, you know, when I read about this, I thought of you, Bill, I mean, you've been retired for a few years, but, uh,
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would that be enough of an incentive maybe to get you back on the job?
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Bill Erfurth: You know, that's surprising that they're offering that much money, but that just
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tells you how sad it is right now is the, uh, with police recruiting.
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Would I accept that?
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Uh, Craig, you know, me, I would say not even a million dollars would get me to come back and work again.
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Uh, it's just a different era, a different time.
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I'm a happy camper.
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I don't have all the drama and, uh, I think I've pretty much used up my nine lives.
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So.
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No.
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Craig Floyd: Yeah, it's a tough job today.
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Certainly different than it was when you, uh, retired from the department after 26 years.
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Final story, and I always like to end on a good news story.
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I read about this the other day, 10 years ago, a guy by the name of Lavelle Schaefer.
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He was a homeless man and a young father.
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Um, and, uh, his life was, uh, pretty much a mess.
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Um, and he went to a homeless shelter and, uh, met up with some people there that gave him some counseling,
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offered him some assistance, how to get his life back on track.
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Um, and, and just this past year now, we know that Lavelle Shaffer has become a Chicago police officer.
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All right.
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He, he, uh, lifted himself up, uh, managed to do the things he needed to do to get his life back in order.
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And, uh, today he's out there serving and protecting the citizens of Chicago.
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Uh, and actually counseling others that were in his predicament, other
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young fathers that were in trouble financially or homeless in many cases.
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And, uh, And he's helping, uh, the, these folks get their life straight again.
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So, uh, I thought that was a good news story.
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Um, he said, my life has come full circle.
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It still feels like a movie almost.
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And, uh, we can only hope that, you know, other people in his situation, dire straits, uh, your life not going
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well can, uh, can maybe, uh, improve themselves the way Lavelle did.
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So, uh, Dennis, I'm going to send it back to you to introduce our very special guest.
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Uh, he is a true hero behind the badge.
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Dennis Collins: No question.
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Thanks for those stories, guys.
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Always interesting when you discuss the current events, but today we have a very special guest, uh, Steven Sund.
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Steve's law enforcement journey started with the Metropolitan
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PD in Washington, DC, he held various leadership positions.
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He had a 25 year, uh, highly decorated, highly remarkable career.
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His expertise was in critical incident management.
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And special events security.
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He handled all the major events.
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Can you imagine in Washington DC security operations?
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Wow.
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What a big job.
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He commanded the MPD special operations unit and helped coordinate security for presidential inaugurations,
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demonstrations, high profile, high profile events in Washington DC.
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But Steve is probably best known for his time with the US Capitol police.
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Uh, he joined as assistant chief in 2017 and was promoted in 2019 to chief.
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He was indeed the chief during the January 6th capitol riot.
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And, um, that will a day that will live in infinite infamy for him, and for many.
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Uh, Steve is, um, holds master's degrees from the Homeland Security, uh, post Naval graduate school.
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He has a bachelor's and a master's from John Hopson, Hopkins university.
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Again, his expertise and leadership have been recognized nationwide by
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law enforcement experts who still are often calling upon him for assistance.
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He received many commendations during his law enforcement career, including
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MPD's Achievement Medal and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.
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He actually received that medal twice, so I think we should ask him about that a little bit later.
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Uh, Steve is also and we're proud to say a member of our law enforcement advisory council for Citizens Behind
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the Badge, as you know, and add with advocacy group to stop the defund and defame the police movement.
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Steve Sund, thank you a million thank yous for taking time to join us today.
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We are so glad to have you.
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Steven Sund: It's an honor to be on with you, gentlemen.
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Thank you very much for the invitation.
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Dennis Collins: You know, there was a statement that you made, I
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think, in your book or something, and you'd have been all out there.
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I mean, you've written the book, uh, hardest thing a man ever has to do is write a book, isn't it?
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And, uh, there was a statement that hit, that hit me though.
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I had gone from nearly, from 25 years in DC, At MPD as a decorated and widely respected leader.
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And in one day, I suddenly became publicly humiliated.
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That is unbelievable, isn't it?
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But it's the way it happens.
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Sometimes we get known for that one day.
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Instead of our whole body of work.
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So you wrote the book.
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You've been on 60 minutes.
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You've done all the interviews.
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You've had a lot to say.
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What was your mission?
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What was your goal behind writing the book?
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Steven Sund: Wow.
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I can't say I really started off with a goal.
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Um, like any, any good police officer, whenever I did a major event, a critical incident, whether it's a, um,
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a special event security afterwards, you always do an after action.
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So.
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With Speaker Pelosi going on the air and calling for my resignation
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on January 7th, less than 24 hours after we got control of the Capitol.
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Uh, and then, uh, it was supposed to be a couple of week transition period,
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uh, for whoever's going to take my place, uh, for me to work with them.
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And they cut, even cut that transition period and had me, uh, removed from my office, uh, immediately.
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So that Friday I had to, uh, come in and start moving everything out.
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I sat down when I was back home and started just collecting my thoughts, just started writing and
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writing and just putting everything down like I was doing an after
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action, um, and ended up gathering, you know, information together.
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And as more and more information came out, I was finally able after the first hearings in February of 2021 before
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the Senate, I was able to actually go back and request my phone records,
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video transcripts from the police department to help support my testimony.
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And started gathering more and more information kind of,
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you know, stitching this whole thing together in after action.
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And then I had whistleblowers come out from the intelligence community from the department of defense And
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I started getting shocked at what I was hearing and again This thing just continued to grow and it almost grew
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to about 800 pages Uh when it finally started getting getting whittled down and turned into this into the book for
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me It was telling the story of what really happened, uh in the days and weeks leading up to january 6th on
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January 6th and then in the fallout, uh, that occurred after it, uh, one,
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so there's an actual, um, legitimate record of what occurred that day.
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And two, so, you know, I love law enforcement, uh, love the men and women of law enforcement.
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I want to see law enforcement do the best it can, it can.
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And a lot of times agencies live and die on their, um, leadership.
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You know, you always hear the, uh, the term that, you know, fish rots from the head down.
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Um, and I wrote this to really help the leadership, you know, that eventually someone's going to, going to take
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this and look and, and see one, how political influences can affect you,
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the importance of relationships, mutual aids, things like that.
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So, you know, I, I really, the mission for me was.
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To gather together, put together an after action, but as it grew, it was finally just to ensure
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that people had the actual facts, uh, of what occurred that day.
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Every fact that's in there, uh, I tried to footnote, I tried to give you
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access to every information, uh, that I based, um, the, the, uh, writing on.
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So, you know, it's easy, it's easy for me, the truth is easy
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and it's easy to just tell the story because it's based on fact.
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Dennis Collins: For those who may not have had the chance yet to read your book, it's called
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Courage Under Fire, Under Siege and Outnumbered, 58 to 1 on January 6th.
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And I was talking to you before, I, I, I read a lot of books and I will tell you that book has more footnotes
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and more research behind it than any book I've read in a long time.
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So it's well worth the read and it's well documented.
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In fact, Craig has.
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The book right there, Courage Under Fear, mine happens to be a Kindle copy, so I do a lot of Kindle readings,
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but I understand it's out in hard, paperback, and of course Kindle.
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Steven Sund: Yeah, the paperback came out.
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Yeah, I was just gonna say real quick.
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The paperback came out December 3rd, and you'll notice the subtitle changed.
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No longer is it "Outnumbered 58 to 1" it's the "Definitive Account From Inside The Capitol on January 6th.'.
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Dennis Collins: Okay, that's that's the latest.
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Steven Sund: Because a member of Congress came in and had
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told me that book should be the abstraction for January 6th.
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They actually actually endorsed, endorsed that.
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So it's been I'll tell you, I never expected in my career to write a book.
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I've done a couple, you know, I've done a thesis.
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I've done a lot of writing in my career.
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Never expected to leave writing a book and the response it's gotten from across the country,
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especially from law enforcement, has been absolutely incredible.
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Craig Floyd: Let me just say that it's the first book I've read this year.
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It took me maybe two, three days at most.
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It was riveting.
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I stayed up late at night reading it, uh, and, and it taught me
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so much, uh, about what I did not know about January 6th.
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And I think that's what's so important for our, our viewers of the podcast.
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And anybody that really wants to get, uh, behind the scenes and understand what really went on,
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read this book, uh, Courage Under Fire, the definitive account from Inside the Capitol on January 6th.
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Um, you know, it made me angry though, I must say, Steve, um, the idea that
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Uh, you were made out to be, uh, the scapegoat, if you will, for January six.
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Uh, you were blamed for improper planning and your officers were crucified and vilified even by
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members of Congress that were being protected by these men and women whose lives they saved.
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Uh, and yet somehow the Capitol Police and you as the chief were blamed and, and you got a raw deal, my friend,
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you are a hero with a capital H and I couldn't be prouder to be working
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with you at Citizens Behind the Badge and having you on as our guest today.
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Bill, I know you feel the same way and you've, you've gotten a little
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irritated by what happened on January 6th and now Steve was treated as well.
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Bill Erfurth: Yeah, absolutely.
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And thank you, Steve, for being with us.
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I wanna afford you the opportunity here, and I know you've been on 60 Minutes, you've been on Tucker
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Carlson, you've been on most of every media that there is out there.
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This is like a long-form forum.
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Uh, so we encourage you to feel free to say anything you want, whatever you want to expound on
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it, and, uh, definitely interested to hear your side of everything.
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Steven Sund: Thank you.
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Look forward to it,
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Craig Floyd: Steve.
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Uh, alright.
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Let me read from your book.
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It says, uh, you said at the end of the, the chapter leading up to the, uh, events of January 6,
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quote, I knew that January 6 would be a busy day, but I thought we had put together a good plan for it.
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Based on the intelligence we had, I thought we were ready.
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Uh, tell us about the planning 6 and why were you so confident that, uh, things would be okay that day?
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Steven Sund: So what's important to realize is January six was not
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the first, um, uh, Trump rally we had had in Washington, D.
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C.
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Oftentimes they're referred to as, uh, the mega rallies make America great again.
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So we had a mega one in November, uh, mega to December.
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I think 1st was November 14th.
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2nd was December 12th.
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Uh, and then the 3rd 1.
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was December 6th.
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Um, the intelligence we were receiving was saying the MAGA 6, the, um, um, sorry, MAGA 3 or, um, the January
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6th was going to be just like the two previous, uh, MAGA rallies.
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The big difference between the MAGA 1 and MAGA 2, they were focused on, um, the Supreme Court swaying the Supreme
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Court because they were still involved in, uh, some of the, um, Adjudication
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going through the Supreme Court, and now it was focused on the Capitol.
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So we knew that the focus of the protest would be the Capitol.
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Any, any protest that's coming up to the Capitol is going to be, the focus is going to be the Capitol.
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So we had planned on that.
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The intelligence I was receiving was, it was going to be just like the previous two MAGA rallies.
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So we had fully activated the police department, fully activated all our, all our resources.
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Um, Put as many people in hard gear for it.
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I can do 273 officers and hard gear, which was gonna be my allotment for the perimeter.
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We had a perimeter set up.
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That was the exact same perimeter.
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We had for the 2 previous mag rallies.
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It was using bike, bike rack for the perimeter.
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Um, and it was based on the intelligence, based on the briefings I was getting from my intelligence unit,
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my intelligence unit was also briefing, uh, members of Congress, uh, and the Capitol Police Board, which I'm sure
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we'll probably talk a little bit about that, a politically appointed board that oversees all, uh, all aspects of,
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uh, of law enforcement for me, that, you know, coming into it, I felt we had
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put together a plan very, very similar to the two previous MAGA rallies.
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The big difference for me was because we had a joint session, excuse me, a joint session of Congress taking place,
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we had, it was going to require a number of officers to be inside handling the events inside the security inside.
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So it cut down on the number of officers I had on the perimeter.
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That's what caused me to go and ask for the National Guard on January 3rd.
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The fact that I did, I just, I felt I would have liked to have more,
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uh, more officers on the perimeter because of the limited amount I had.
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Craig Floyd: Interesting.
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I, you know, I read this, uh, message, uh, that you all picked up, uh,
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law enforcement intelligence anyway picked up, uh, prior to January 6th.
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And here's a message that was posted on social media by a protester.
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Be ready to fight.
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Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in,
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get violent, stop calling this a march or rally or a protest.
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Go there ready for war.
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We get our president or we die.
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Now, it seems to me that that's a pretty good warning that you're,
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you're going to expect a lot of trouble on January 6th at the U S Capitol.
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Your, your officers were obviously targets based on the social media intelligence.
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So what went so terribly wrong?
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If you had that kind of information, why wasn't the Capitol better protected?
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Steven Sund: So go in and as you read through and you see that intelligence coming in, you'll also
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see intelligence that listed Um, you may have to kill the palace guards.
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You probably remember reading that That's a reference to my uh, my officers But look at the intelligence and a
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lot of a lot of the intelligence you have links to and you'll be able to see Um that we're getting none of the
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intelligence I had that was coming to me was talking about their social media posts talking about killing Um,
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my police officers, social media posts talking about an organized, um, attack at the, at the Capitol, you know, I was
25:40
receiving, you know, again, we, they put out my intelligence unit, put out three intelligence assessments, um, all
25:47
three of them indicated is going to be previous, just like the two previous, uh, MAGA rallies, uh, not indicating
25:53
intelligence, like what you just read, not even footnoted in the intelligence.
25:57
Matter of fact, Um, even on the 4th, the 5th, and the 6th, the
26:01
last intelligence assessment was produced on Sunday, January 3rd.
26:05
Um, even, even on Sunday, I had my intelligence officials briefing members of Congress and the Capitol
26:10
Police Board that it was going to be just like the two MAGA rallies.
26:13
On the 4th, my intelligence unit put out another, uh, series of reports, a daily intelligence report, indicating
26:20
that the probability, and, and, and listen to this, the probability of
26:23
acts of civil disobedience and arrests on January 6th are low to improbable.
26:29
Think about that.
26:30
Dennis Collins: Yeah.
26:30
Steven Sund: Um, so that, uh, that was the number one thing that I think, uh, affected our planning,
26:35
uh, and cascaded from there was the, it was the failure of intelligence.
26:38
Dennis Collins: Could I, could I ask a follow up question to that?
26:41
Because that, that's, that's a great, you know, I, I know you make a lot, you talk a lot about the intelligence
26:47
in the book and when I've seen her interviews with you also, but let me
26:51
quote something that you, you said in the book, this was a colossal.
26:56
US Capitol Police intelligence failure, plain and simple.
27:01
I know there are a number of characters that were circling around here.
27:05
One of the central actors was Assistant Chief Pitman, who was apparently your head of intelligence.
27:11
She also had two people that you, that were fairly new,
27:15
Donahue and Farnham, I think, who were on the intelligence team.
27:20
Somehow, somehow the intelligence division didn't tell you what they knew.
27:27
What's that story about?
27:30
Steven Sund: So that's a, uh, that, that, that's a good one.
27:32
You look at it and that's why I think we had a number of intelligence, uh, analysts come out as, as
27:36
whistleblowers, uh, because I, I'll refer, I referenced it in the book.
27:40
There's a number of emails where they're talking about this intelligence that's coming in from the U.
27:43
S.
27:43
Marshals Service from, from various agencies.
27:46
They're pushing it up.
27:47
And it's being provided to the, uh, assistant director of my
27:50
intelligence, uh, um, division, the director, uh, which is, um.
27:55
Donahue and Farnham, and then, uh, even up through, uh, the, uh, Deputy Chief at the time was Gallagher,
28:01
he's now an Assistant Chief there, uh, in Pittman, and wasn't even being put in the, the assessments.
28:06
That raises a lot of concerns about why that wasn't being handled that way.
28:11
Dennis Collins: Was that, okay, let's just put it out there.
28:14
Do you feel that was done purposely or accidentally?
28:18
And what's your theory on that?
28:20
Steven Sund: You know, um, there's, you know, I'm again, I provided all the evidence that I, that I
28:25
have, there's a lot of ways of looking at and thinking about it.
28:28
It's hard to see the amount of intelligence that they had, uh, and realize that that was not even
28:35
being put in the assessments, not even being footnoted, uh, and think that it was just by, by accident.
28:40
I can tell you this.
28:41
If I was a brand new person as a director, assistant director and
28:45
intelligence unit, I I'm going to err on the side of caution.
28:48
I'm going to give them more intelligence than, you know, I'm going to make sure it's all in there because this is, this
28:53
is my first big event and it's, you know, my, my keister's riding on it,
28:56
uh, to think that they were sitting on this month, this amount of intelligence.
29:00
Um, And even the FBI still had an amount of intelligence that we didn't have, but still, they provided enough
29:06
to my intelligence unit that we could have effectively planned for it.
29:10
It would have been the intelligence needed to get the Capitol Police Board
29:14
to approve outside resources, bigger fencing, mutual aid, National Guard.
29:19
We wouldn't be here.
29:20
So, um, it's easy to go down some of those rabbit holes to wonder why would
29:24
they go out of their way to prevent the intelligence from being published.
29:27
I'm still trying to figure that one out.
29:30
Uh, there's a number of ways of looking at it, but it is concerning that it wasn't included in the assessments.
29:35
Dennis Collins: Well, let me just, uh, kind of, um, finish out this line of
29:38
questioning with a, uh, comment that Pittman made in front of Congress.
29:43
I believe she was testifying before a committee and I'll quote, let me be clear, USCP should
29:49
have been more prepared for this attack by January 4th, USCP.
29:53
New, this would not be like other previous protests.
29:57
I am here to offer my sincere apologies on behalf of the department.
30:02
What, is that all about?
30:05
Steven Sund: So I think a lot of your viewers are going to know the term CYA.
30:11
And they have a lot of CYA right there.
30:14
If that's the case, if that's the case that by January 4th, they
30:18
knew this was not going to be like any other, any other assessments.
30:21
Why did they sit on a call with me with all the partner agencies that
30:24
are brought in on a video call on January 5th and didn't say that?
30:28
Why were they briefing?
30:29
Deputy Chief Gallagher was briefing members of Congress and their staff and the Capitol Police Board as late
30:34
as the afternoon of Tuesday, January 5th, that this was going to be just like the two previous rallies.
30:39
Yet we're going to go ahead and testify to that later on.
30:42
That's CYA and, you know, trying to save her job and trying to become the chief.
30:47
Bill Erfurth: So CYA, I want to chime in and say, so CYA cover your ass is a big part of all of this.
30:53
And there's also a lot of people clearly that believe that there was more to this than meets the eye.
31:00
There's even former police officers that worked at the U.
31:05
S.
31:06
Capitol Police Department that feel that it was a setup.
31:09
Also feel that you were set up by Pittman.
31:12
Uh, she clearly undermined you, uh, as far as I'm concerned.
31:18
A number of other people and the politics of this is just beyond the scope.
31:25
So as time has passed, clearly we've heard more things, more of the truth, more of the facts have come out.
31:34
You know, there's some factions that want to compare January 6th to Pearl Harbor, you know, so
31:40
it just so much, so much of this is so complicated, but for you.
31:47
Finally, you've reached the point where you've been exonerated, which has to be a huge burden off your shoulders.
31:54
Steven Sund: Oh, it's a huge burden off the shoulders and to be honest with you, I never really expected to see
31:59
anything in writing, um, come out with my name on it, uh, from Congress, uh, saying that, that I've been exonerated.
32:06
It's, uh, it's interesting before that final, that, um, interim,
32:10
uh, final interim report, uh, came out December 17th.
32:14
When I last went to testify, I've had people ask me, has anybody ever apologized to you?
32:17
And it's, it's interesting.
32:18
So I went to testify September, uh, I think it was September 16th, 2023, uh, before the committee on
32:25
house administration was one of the last time I publicly testified.
32:29
And following the testimony, the chair and vice chair, the chair is Barry Loudermilk, vice chair is Norma Torres,
32:35
a Democrat from California, um, who after January 6th had called for me to be arrested and placed in jail.
32:42
Uh, because of my, uh, being the chief on January 6th.
32:46
Um, Norma Torres actually approached me after my testimony, came up and apologized.
32:50
She was, uh, really the one person that's, that's come out and apologized.
32:54
So she said, I never realized what you went through before and
32:57
during January 6th and the effort she did to, uh, try and save us.
33:00
Uh, gave me a challenge coin, invited me to, uh, to lunch.
33:02
We haven't had that lunch, but that meant a lot.
33:05
So now to see Barry Loudermilk in the committee, uh, so with, you know, uh, Norma Torres being the, uh, vice chair,
33:12
Put out that report, and on page one of that report, literally listing me by
33:17
name as exonerated really meant a lot, and something I never expected to see.
33:21
Craig Floyd: We've, uh, in a moment we're going to talk about what actually happened on the day of
33:26
January 6th, a lot of assault on television, but you obviously had a
33:29
different perspective that I think people will find quite interesting.
33:34
But let's go back to something you said, which is peculiar to the U.
33:37
S.
33:37
Capitol Police.
33:38
You know, Bill always shares stories about his political frustrations
33:43
with his department and all the things he had to deal with.
33:46
It pales in comparison to what goes on, uh, with the U S Capitol police.
33:52
Um, in many ways you as the chief of police, we're really not in charge of making all the
33:58
major decisions about security on January 6th or any other day.
34:02
I worked up there for 10 years.
34:04
I know exactly.
34:05
What you had to deal with.
34:06
You have a sergeant at arm in the Senate.
34:08
You have a sergeant at arm in the house.
34:10
You have the architect of the Capitol.
34:13
Uh, and this constitutes the Capitol Police Board.
34:16
And those are the people that are really your boss that ultimately make the final decisions.
34:21
And, and tell us about why that process really prevented you from
34:26
having the National Guard support that you wanted on January six.
34:32
Steven Sund: That's you're, you're absolutely right.
34:34
The political oversight and the political involvement in security on Capitol Hill has got to stop.
34:40
Um, the Capitol police board, you have three, I mentioned the three people, uh, House and Senate Sergeant arms,
34:45
the architect of the Capitol, all three politically appointed people, all three, uh, catering to their, uh,
34:52
whoever put them in, in, in position, uh, to make sure that they're making decisions that'll, that'll please them.
34:56
That's, that's a big problem.
34:58
Uh, what people need to realize is.
35:00
I was the only chief of police in the United States of America, think about this, that has a federal law, 2 U.
35:06
S.
35:06
1970.
35:08
I would encourage your viewers to look it up, but make sure you look it up before December 2021,
35:13
because based on my testimony, they've now changed the law.
35:16
So, 2 U.
35:17
S.
35:17
1970 required that I go to those three politically appointed people anytime
35:21
I wanted to bring in resources from my men and women on Capitol Police.
35:25
Um, so when I went, uh, I was required by law, I wanted the National Guard.
35:30
Uh, to support us on the hill.
35:31
I didn't even want armed National Guard.
35:33
I wanted unarmed National Guard to help augment my officers on the perimeter
35:36
just because I know a bike rack with nobody standing behind it is no good.
35:41
You need to have whether it's National Guard police officers stationed every couple of distance to keep
35:47
people from, you know, even wanting to try and jump over the bike rack.
35:51
So January 3rd, you know, looking at it, a number of people are coming downtown.
35:56
I've done a number of big events.
35:58
I just.
35:58
Didn't have the comfort level.
35:59
I would have liked for the perimeter.
36:01
Uh, so that's what that's what required me by law to go to the Capitol police board and request the,
36:06
the use of the National Guard, um, for, uh, to support my perimeter.
36:10
And I did that the morning of January 3rd, people need to realize January 3rd was a Sunday.
36:15
Well, why were you working on a Sunday?
36:17
It was the 1st day of the 117th Congress, regardless of what it is January 3rd that, um, uh, yeah.
36:23
New Congress, we just, uh, uh, swore in a new Congress now, uh, but it was a new Congress.
36:29
I went and I saw the sergeant arms nine twenty four in the morning.
36:32
I still remember because I've looked it up and I pulled my video transcripts, uh, went into see Paul
36:37
Irving and request the National Guard because I'm required by law.
36:40
Uh, and he didn't, he wouldn't approve it because he was
36:42
concerned about the optics of the National Guard on Capitol Hill.
36:46
And you're likely to hear that term optics come up a little bit more.
36:49
Um.
36:50
You know, knowing that, you know, Paul Irving, again, you know, House and Senate Sergeant at Arms, their title
36:54
is Chief Law Enforcement Official for the House, and Chief Law Enforcement Official for, uh, the Senate.
37:00
So when you think of the, the Chief, and you think of a Security Premier, you think the Chief's at the top of it.
37:05
Not really.
37:06
I've got two Two additional chiefs that were top of me.
37:09
Um, but needless to say, Paul wouldn't approve it.
37:11
I then went over to see Mike Stinger, who was the chairman of the Capitol Police Board, uh, to request, um,
37:17
the National Guard went over to see him right after I left Paul's office.
37:21
He wasn't in yet, went back at 11 53 AM because again, I've got all my records, uh, went in to ask him.
37:27
And again, he wouldn't approve it as well.
37:30
Uh, and later on, I found out that Paul Irving hadn't called him and told him I
37:32
was coming that, um, they were concerned that Speaker Pelosi wouldn't go for it.
37:38
Craig Floyd: That really hampered your efforts to protect the Capitol.
37:41
Steven Sund: Yes, it did.
37:43
Bill Erfurth: Besides the fact that they didn't think she would
37:45
want to approve that, she, in fact, did not want to do that.
37:50
Ultimately, they Where her political lackeys, if you want to, for, you
37:56
know, for a better description, but she called the shots.
38:01
Steven Sund: That that is correct.
38:02
She, uh, she, she wields a lot of, uh, a lot of power on Capitol Hill.
38:05
She's actually the, probably the most powerful member of Congress,
38:09
uh, at the time was probably the most powerful member of Congress.
38:12
Speaker of the house wields a, uh, extremely amount of,
38:15
uh, power and what people need to realize is think about it.
38:18
So I'm denied twice in advance of January six.
38:21
Come, come January six, you know, when the, uh, um, uh, riot began to occur on the west front of the
38:27
Capitol at 1253, you know, made a call to my partner agency, DC police, uh, and we can talk about that.
38:33
I'd actually reach out to DC police at 10 59 that morning and ask them if they
38:37
could stage resources nearby in case we needed them, which they did, um.
38:41
Reached out to Jeff Carroll with the D.
38:43
C.
38:43
Police, he immediately was sending in those resources.
38:47
And then at 12.
38:48
58 I made my first call to the Capitol Police Board, the two sergeant at arms, requesting permission to bring
38:52
in those resources that by law I have to ask permission to bring in.
38:56
Think about it.
38:57
It would take 71 minutes.
39:00
11 repeated calls to them before I finally got approval.
39:03
So, you know, anybody that thinks, well, why, why would they deny it on, on the third, when you
39:08
ask it in advance, why would they deny it while we're under attack?
39:11
The attack was occurring right at Stinger's window, right outside his window.
39:15
And I still, it took 71 minutes.
39:17
Repeated calls for them to finally approve my request to bring in resources.
39:22
Dennis Collins: What is the, uh, Oh, I'm sorry.
39:24
I'm just going to say..
39:25
Craig Floyd: The question I had, uh, since we started Citizens Behind the Badge based on we got
39:30
to stop this defund and defame the police movement, right?
39:34
It was impacting public safety across the country.
39:37
I'm just wondering how much did the defund movement, uh, affect,
39:41
uh, your lack of resources, uh, and personnel on January 6th?
39:47
Steven Sund: So that's, that's interesting.
39:48
I think you're so far the only person I've actually talked to yet that have asked that question.
39:53
We were facing a 26 million budget cut because Congress, and I think I heard the term was, well, we can't
40:00
demand these other people, agencies, cut their budget when our own police department's not facing a budget cut.
40:06
So I was facing a 26 million budget cut.
40:09
It hadn't been enacted yet, but I was facing it because
40:11
we were right in the middle of the defund the police movement.
40:14
What happened with me And again, when you mentioned, I became the Assistant Chief of Operations in 2017, when I very
40:21
first came in, I immediately started doing an assessment of what equipment, what training do my officers get, and
40:27
I found that not, like, like DC police, every officer, as soon as you get out of the academy, you get a riot baton,
40:33
you get a helmet, and you get an APR, air purifying respirator, um, you may not be trained to the level one civil
40:39
disturbance unit training everyone else, you know, the specialized units get, or the, uh, the civil disturbance
40:44
unit gets, But at least you're going to have that basic, uh, protection.
40:49
So, immediately coming in, I said, you know, hey, we need to make sure our officers have this.
40:53
Um, you may not realize this, Capital Police, only police department in the country that has
40:58
been subjected to two biological attacks at, um, Anthrax and Ricin.
41:02
And you know, not every one of their officers is issued an APR.
41:06
So, needless to say, 2017, I come in, uh, make these, uh, decisions.
41:10
Say, hey, I want a helmet.
41:12
Right.
41:12
But on APR for every officer on the police department, it wouldn't
41:16
be until October of 2020 that I'd finally get a budget approval.
41:21
And my CFO found money just to get helmets.
41:24
That's how long that takes.
41:28
Craig Floyd: Very sad.
41:31
Bill Erfurth: Crazy.
41:31
So the interesting thing, uh, just since we're on this topic and to kind of further that discussion
41:37
is I believe when you were the chief at the time, Steve, your
41:42
budget for the police department was somewhere around 300 million.
41:47
Then we go through the whole defund the police thing, and I understand that
41:51
currently now, today, the budget is up to somewhere around a billion dollars.
41:58
What do you think about that?
42:00
Steven Sund: So, my budget, um, again, I'm a numbers guy.
42:03
I try to be very, very specific.
42:04
It was 463 million dollars.
42:07
Um, And there's a, there's a term you often hear, uh, up on,
42:11
up on Capitol Hill, never let a, um, disaster go to waste.
42:14
Um, the budget right now, I think when I had last budget cycle, I think we're right around 752 million.
42:20
So, um, your viewers may not realize that Capitol Police is
42:24
about the 25th largest police department in the country.
42:26
And at the time I had probably about the 12th largest police department.
42:30
I'm sorry, I had about the 12th largest budget.
42:33
They're still about the 25th largest police department, and they have about the 6th largest
42:37
budget of any police department in the United States of America.
42:40
That is a huge budget.
42:43
Bill Erfurth: And it's interesting that you just talked about the red tape and the difficulty just
42:46
to get helmets, equipment that was necessary for your officers.
42:51
But yet you've got all this, this, the department has all this money.
42:55
And clearly you're not there now.
42:57
And, and I think that there's something in Congress now where they're talking
43:01
about increasing the budget all the way up to a billion dollars.
43:04
I had something that I just read recently and, um, I just find it a
43:09
bit ironic and you had alluded to it just a minute ago about the fact that.
43:14
They have made that statement to you like, well, how can we not defund the police department here when we're
43:21
talking about everybody else defunding and the whole political landscape
43:26
of that whole situation had to be enormously frustrating, I'm sure.
43:30
Steven Sund: Oh, absolutely.
43:32
Absolutely.
43:32
You know, you, you want your officers to have the best equipment.
43:35
You want them to have the best training.
43:36
Um, but it is, it's, it's, there's, there's just such a demand for the, for the officers up there because,
43:43
you know, the, the members of Congress want certain doors open.
43:46
They want access.
43:47
They want people to have, You know, be able to get in, you know, unfettered access into their constituents.
43:52
Uh, and it's expensive.
43:53
It's expensive to, you know, each door open each hour, each, uh, each day it gets, it starts
43:58
building up, uh, and making demands on the, uh, on the budget.
44:01
So as the chief, it'd be nice if they just let you focus.
44:04
I mean, I came in at the time, 25 plus years of law enforcement.
44:08
Uh, it'd be nice if they'd let me do my, do my job and get the equipment I needed and, and focus on
44:13
that rather than, um, people just, you know, having ease of access.
44:16
Um, but I think now they're looking at it.
44:18
They're looking at the, the threats again, January six, you had the
44:21
threats, you know, skyrocket against members of Congress.
44:24
Uh, and I think they're looking at trying to increase budget to, uh, address some of that issue.
44:29
Dennis Collins: Uh, I got one follow up question, um, on all of this, uh, particularly the Capitol police board.
44:37
I think you also had oversight committees too, right?
44:39
You had several in the Senate and several in the house that were also involved in the mix from time to time.
44:45
Steven Sund: That is correct.
44:46
I had four oversight committees, two on the House side, two on the Senate side, uh, and it, it wasn't unusual,
44:51
especially during the, the George Floyd, um, protests that we'd be,
44:57
you know, gearing up for protests coming up to the, uh, uh, Capitol.
45:01
I'd have, you know, I'd be putting up fencing, I'd be putting out my officers in riot gear.
45:05
That I'd get calls from my oversight committees, um, demanding that my officers not be out in riot gear,
45:10
that they're concerned with the look, uh, and things like that.
45:13
And I'd, I'd explain exactly why they're there and stuff like that.
45:17
And ultimately I'd have to have the, the riot gear placed right near them.
45:21
Because the Capitol Police Board would be like, yeah, no, we need to, uh, need to back this back a little.
45:26
Even while we were dealing with the, uh, Supreme Court Justice, uh, nominations.
45:31
And, and think about this.
45:32
This is how law enforcement is manipulated.
45:35
You know, we had, you regularly, uh, fence off the East Front of the Capitol, which is, you know,
45:39
between the Capitol and the Supreme Court or the Library of Congress.
45:43
Uh, because a lot of members of Congress would come up and park
45:45
on that, uh, hardscape on the East Front and then go in and vote.
45:50
Um, they would want, you know, No fencing to be put up so, uh, demonstrators could actually interact
45:56
with members of Congress to put influence on them, put pressure on them to vote against whether
46:01
it's Kavanaugh, whether it's, um, and any of the other, uh, Supreme Court justices and think about it.
46:06
They even fought to keep access into the buildings open and you had, um.
46:11
The one protester, I think it was Senator Flake, in the elevator put a lot of pressure on the Senator,
46:19
and by the time the vote came up for the Supreme Court Justice, they actually were able to delay it because
46:24
he pushed for the FBI to look into the allegations of sexual assault.
46:29
Uh, and, and so they, they actually succeeded.
46:31
So you see that and it's just, again, it's just politicizing security and there really is no, no place for it.
46:37
You know, let the, let the officers do their job, uh, and give it as secure environment as you can.
46:43
Dennis Collins: So today, as we sit here today, years later, Has anything changed?
46:48
Is it still run by the Capitol Police Board?
46:51
And are there still the political implications that you just spoke about?
46:56
Steven Sund: So, has anything changed?
46:58
So, December 2021, uh, President Biden changed, uh, signed a, into a law, uh, a change of 2 U.
47:05
S.
47:05
1970.
47:06
It's the, uh, United States Capitol Police, I think it's called the Emergency, uh, Authorization Act
47:11
or Emergency Assistance Act, that now allows the Chief of Police To
47:15
request assistance, uh, without going through the capital police board.
47:19
So if you think I was wrong, why did they change the law?
47:22
Um, so that they changed that with the amount of budget.
47:26
I think capital piece have gotten a couple of key things have have happened.
47:28
They've bought equipment for all the officers.
47:33
They now need to train to that.
47:34
So they're they're doing a lot more training.
47:35
Their city use doing a lot more training with partner agencies, which is which is good.
47:40
Their intelligence unit.
47:41
The people that you had mentioned, um, are are not involved in intelligence anymore.
47:46
The assistant director, the director.
47:48
Uh, both gone, uh, replaced.
47:50
They brought in another person, uh, down, I think from NYPD.
47:53
That seems to be doing a good job.
47:54
When I talked to some of the analysts now, uh, information's being, uh, captured, being shared, uh, effectively.
48:01
So I think that's a big key.
48:03
Um, but again, with intelligence is you don't know what you don't know.
48:06
So if there is something that is being kept from the chief.
48:10
You know, it's hard for him to know it.
48:11
Um, so that is kind of tough, but I think they're doing better with their intelligence sharing.
48:15
I think they're doing much better with their, um, working with their partner agencies, which is, which is key.
48:21
Every agency out there.
48:22
You hope you have a good mutual aid program.
48:24
I hope you practice it.
48:25
Um, so I think those are the key things that have that have changed.
48:28
It's still a wide open campus and it's, it's hard to protect a wide open campus, but that's, that's not gonna change.
48:35
Dennis Collins: Join us next week as we continue our conversation with Chief Stephen Sund.
48:40
Next week, we'll hear his minute by minute account of January 6th.
48:44
I'm Dennis Collins, and we'll see you next time on Heroes Behind the Badge.