THREAD: I have once again collaborated with Joe Hanneman of The Epoch Times on a Capitol Police whistleblower story. This one has to do with an unexplained order that former USCP Lt. Tarik Johnson received from Capt. Ben Smith in the days preceding #Jan6.
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This was an order that violated equipment exchange protocols on multiple levels. Receiving the order to collect helmets, Johnson was told to have his officers bring them to his office. Johnson said in his 23 years on the force, he had never experienced this.
Dept. protocol requires a one-for-one exchange of replaced equipment, “from tie tacks to bullets,” Johnson told me. There is also the matter that all equipment is to be returned or exchanged at the USCP Property Asset Management Division building - not to a superior officer.
Dept. protocol also requires that a “receipt” for the equipment exchange be issued to the officers. Johnson had no such receipts to hand out, and no replacement helmets to offer. In fact, he told me that many of those helmets were just “piled in his office” when he wasn’t there.
I needn’t mention the additional curiosity related to the timing of this helmet order, considering @CapitolPolice knew a major protest event was only days away, and the Dept. itself had issued as many as six permits for protests on Capitol property, for #Jan6.
Even if older helmets were expired or out-of-date compared to new technologies, those old helmets would have been better to have available to those officers than the baseball caps and stocking caps many @CapitolPolice officers were wearing during multiple violent attacks.
In our interview with former @CapitolPolice Chief Steven Sund, he explained that he was familiar with the funding, order, and delivery of 104 replacement helmets, but only from our questions - over two years later - that there had been a turn-in order given to officers, outside protocol.
Of additional curiosity, Lt. Johnson believes the international media coverage of his wearing the red MAGA hat, and having recruited two Oath Keepers to assist in evacuating 16 @CapitolPolice officers from the east side of the Capitol, is not the primary reason he was suspended.
Having covered Johnson’s story, at length, it is known that his heroic actions that day, for having evacuated both the Senate and House chambers, despite having been ignored by then Asst. Chief Yogananda Pittman, may have embarrassed @CapitolPolice leadership.
But Johnson’s 140-page OPR, (disciplinary report), makes no mention of his well-documented heroic decision-making prior to 3 pm on #Jan6. Instead, the OPR only deals with his wearing the MAGA hat and recruiting the Oath Keepers for assistance in helping those 16 officers.
Ultimately, the OPR deemed Johnson was appropriately suspended for “conduct unbecoming” a @CapitolPolice officer, for his actions after 3 pm. Considering the OPR’s whitewash of his actions prior to 3 pm, one could assume his having embarrassed Pittman’s command failures . . .
. . . led to Johnson’s 17-month suspension. Johnson feels it goes deeper than that. Having been on former Sen. Patrick Leahy’s protective detail for more than two years, Johnson felt comfortable reaching out to the Senator for assistance after @CapitolPolice turned up the heat on him.
Instead of receiving assistance from Leahy’s office, Johnson was suspended approximately one hour after getting off the phone with Leahy, himself, on the Saturday morning following #Jan6.
The next day, (Sunday), Johnson received a call from a Leahy staffer saying they wanted to have a meeting, which was then scheduled the following day, (Monday).
In that Monday conference call, with Leahy’s Chief of Staff and Johnson’s attorneys, he says they had a brief discussion about the Senate and House evacuations and the reason he wore the MAGA hat, but their primary focus was on “preparedness leading up to #Jan6.”
On that conference call, Johnson explained to Leahy’s staff that they had taken the returned helmets without issuing replacements to those officers. After that call, he never heard from Leahy’s office again.
Over the months, Johnson grew to believe that it was the conversations with Leahy and his staff that primarily led to his suspension and demotion.
Even later, realizing the more far-reaching implications of the helmet issue, Johnson grew to believe it was that which became the key element of his suspension, despite the fact his OPR dealt only with the MAGA hat and Oath Keeper evacuation event.
In reaching out to other sources for this story, I contacted an officer in one of @CapitolPolice Civil Disturbance Units (CDU). In our very candid conversation, he explained he’d received a new helmet about a month before #Jan6, but there were numerous problems with the new helmet.
Fitting problems, as well as bolt problems for attaching the face shield and gas canisters, caused him to return two of the new helmets for replacements until he acquired one that functioned properly. Otherwise, the entire process was done “by the book” with Property Management.
The “one-for-one” exchange protocol and receipts given were handled correctly. He was unaware of helmet issues with other @CapitolPolice divisions but after his platoon was deployed at about 1 pm on the Capitol’s lower west terrace . . .
. . . he remembered being surprised to see other officers on that violent west side battle line without proper protection. “I just assumed they didn’t have time to go to their lockers and retrieve their helmets. It never crossed my mind that they didn’t have helmets.”
@HouseAdmin needs to get important questions answered. Who was it that ordered Capt. Smith to direct Johnson to collect those helmets, outside of Property Management protocols, and without issuing replacements? Especially with the scheduled protests only days away.
Was this simply another “failure” on the part of then @CapitolPolice Asst. Chief Pittman - given that she was the head of Dept. intelligence? A failure to notify down-rank commanders of the permitted protests and scheduled marches on the Capitol?
Or was this yet another piece of the puzzle, for which many @CapitolPolice officers believe they were “set up to fail” on January 6?
