Mission Un-Creep
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Capitol Police told not to help Metro Police during the Navy Yard shooting, but to stay to protect the Capitol.
Same excuse for why we didn’t send troops to Benghazi:
“GEN. DEMPSEY: They weren’t told to stand down. A stand down means don’t do anything. They were told to — that the mission they were asked to perform was not in Benghazi but was at Tripoli Airport.”
Geez, you’d think they were all a bunch of government union employees protecting their turf.
Suddenly, the reports of a second and third man wielding AR-15’s makes sense. They were there, then suddenly they weren’t there. Now we know why the cops have stopped looking for them. What we don’t know is how many people died when they retreated.
And I doubt we will. Not from the American media, anyway.
September 23rd, 2013 at 9:10 am
The weird thing about Dempsey’s response was that he kept emphasizing that one member of the team told to stand down in Tripoli (there! I said it!) was a medic, and that he might have been needed to treat the injured on the incoming plane from Benghazi. Knauer (nor anyone else) bothered to ask Dempsey why there were no other doctors available in a city of over two million people.
September 23rd, 2013 at 10:04 am
I can only imagine the confusion and pandemonium that occurred during the first part of the incident. I’m referring to the cops at the scene. In some jurisdictions, assistance, also called mutual aid, must be requested by the agency handling the incident. If not, the responding officers have no legal jurisdiction there and any actions they take would possibly not be legal. Did the Metro agency ask for help from the outside agencies?
“Hot” incidents, anywhere in the country, will draw eager officers from all around wanting to get involved; ask for two officers to assist and you’ll get 12. It is up to the assisting agency’s watch commander to insure their own jurisdiction is also adequately protected. Left unchecked, every cop in a 25 mile radius would be there. The possibility that this could be a diversionary action with the plan to stage an attack on the Capitol once all officers were at the shipyard could not have been initially discounted.
I’m not trying to defend or condemn what happened. However, there are good reasons for such directives. Whether the apply here remains to be seen. However, many police officers and their supervisors can attest to these possibilities. Humble opinion …
September 23rd, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Joe, keep in mind that the group told to stand down with regards to the DC atrocity was a SWAT team already on site. In other words, not the group you’d use to defend the Capitol at all.
And Benghazi? Well, it seems that we had a bunch of people already there, none of whom appear to have tried to do anything, Plus, we had Tripoli and Sicily not that far away. I can excuse not having someone THERE, but I can not excuse not having someone at least trying to get there. It was a great opportunity to help Jihadis assume room temperature, squandered, and now it’s CYA time.
September 23rd, 2013 at 8:44 pm
Bubbasan … I agree totally. Bengazi and the DC incident are two entirely different situations. Bengazi was a shameful example of pride over protection. I believe that the Bengazi incident could have probably been killed in fairly short order if the entities at the top just told the truth. The first bad guys were the Al Quaida attackers who caught us by surprise. No one likes them and would defend them. Obama’s stubborn attempt to bend the truth in his direction became insurmountable. Even then, he wouldn’t back down. Hillary’s robotic explanation and later cold response, “What difference does it make?” Could have all been avoided if President Obama didn’t have to have it “his way”. Or, “His way” to his supporters.
Actually, I would expect the Capitol Police to have quite a sizable SWAT-type team, just for events like this. Again, I find their presence puzzling. A unit like that isn’t just cruising about on patrol, waiting to jump an interesting call, as a normal cop would. In most situations, they must be deployed (formally called-out to a specific situation). If for some resaon they just jumped in, it is quite possible that their watch commander called them back pending request from the initiating agency. If that agency knew they were there early-on, it is surprising that they didn’t at least ask them to stand by, or stage at a nearby location until the situation could be assessed. Humble suggestions from one with little experience at those levels.
However, I do stand by my initial suggestion that the event was probably pretty confusing and misdirected until eveyone got if figured out. That’s more a reality than criticism. The only truly happy people at those things are the lowest ranking, least senior personnel who can become involved to their heart’s content with little fear of criticism or deflected blame. Just some thoughts …