Police Scrap Request for 100 Armed National Guardsmen to Tackle Pro-Capitol Riot Rally

On 6 January 2021, hundreds of pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building in Washington to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 3 November 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger has withdrawn a request for armed National Guard members to be on standby for Saturday's rally in support of the 6 January Capitol riot defendants, according to The Washington Post.

The newspaper quoted several unnamed sources as saying that on Friday, Manger formally asked for the deployment of 100 armed National Guard members to the 18 September Capitol rally, but that he then dropped the request after conferring with Pentagon officials.

The sources said that during the rally, the National Guardsmen would only be equipped with batons and would be accompanied by armed police.

The claims were echoed by Defence Department spokesman Chris Mitchell who said that the National Guard soldiers on Saturday would only serve in a support capacity "to help protect the US Capitol Building and Congressional Office buildings by manning building entry points and verifying credentials of individuals seeking access to the building".

Manger, in turn, touted the Capitol Police Board as "nothing but helpful" and "supportive". He told reporters that "when we [he and Pentagon officials] talked about the issue of putting the National Guard on standby, or calling for the National Guard assistance, we had a discussion".

According to him, "everybody had different perspectives and different thoughts about it […]. In the end, we were all in agreement for what we asked for".

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S. January 6, 2021

© REUTERS / Stephanie Keith

Referring to the upcoming rally, Manger also stressed that the Capitol Police have "a strong plan in place to ensure that it remains peaceful, and if violence does occur, that we can stop it as quickly as possible".

This comes a week after media reports said that the police are bracing for a possible worst-case scenario during the rally, and that "there's an all-hands-on-deck policy, with all field officers expected to show up" for the event "so they won't be outmanned and underprepared like they were back on that fateful day in January".

The so-called "Justice for J6" rally, initiated by the group Look Ahead America, aims to bring public attention to hundreds of individuals arrested, kept in detention, and charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot. The rally is expected to be attended by about 700 people and is scheduled to run from noon to 1:15 p.m. EST (5:15 p.m. GMT) on Saturday.

On 6 January 2021, hundreds of Trump supporters besieged the US Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying the results of what the 45th president slammed as "the most corrupt elections" in American history. Five people died during the riots, and dozens more were injured, including at least 138 police officers. Law enforcement authorities arrested about 600 individuals who took part in the Capitol riots, charging some of them with assaulting federal police officers.