The scene outside Union Station in our nation’s capital that day was almost apocalyptic.
Anti-Israel, pro-Palestine protesters arrived at Columbus Circle in front of the historic train station after first marching to the nearby U.S. Capitol. They were supposed to demonstrate peacefully and then disperse.
They didn’t do that.
In defiance of a permit granted to the ANSWER Coalition and obtained by the Washington Examiner, the protesters defaced the Columbus Fountain and other property and burned American flags shortly after arriving at Columbus Circle about 2:30 p.m. July 24.
The Daily Signal filmed three U.S. Park Police officers as they struggled to arrest a single individual. As they detained him, another pro-Palestine protester in the mob grabbed one officer’s collar and dragged him away.
Organizers of this pro-Palestine rally at Columbus Circle had predicted that attendance would top 10,000. The ANSWER Coalition, an umbrella of anti-war groups formed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, claimed that at least 5,000 protesters would show up.
Why, then, were Park Police and other law enforcement agencies so overwhelmed?
Officer Kenneth Spencer, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police for U.S. Park Police, told The Daily Signal that 175 officers were detailed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the Capitol that day to address a joint meeting of Congress about the Israel-Hamas war.
Of the 175 officers, 29 were deployed to Columbus Circle, which is just north of Capitol Hill.
The jurisdiction of Park Police in the metropolitan Washington area stretches far beyond the National Mall to other parts of the District of Columbia, as well as the adjoining Virginia and Maryland suburbs and major commuter routes into and out of the nation’s capital.
With Park Police officers spread everywhere from Glover Archbold Park in Northwest Washington to wherever Netanyahu’s motorcade happened to be, the law enforcement agency was “stretched thin,” Spencer said in an Aug. 1 interview.
“We used to have far more sworn officers available to do large-scale events like this,” he said, referring to the Netanyahu visit.
In 2006, U.S. Park Police had 601 sworn officers. Sixteen years later, that number had dropped to 494 officers, according to the FOP union.
Why the officer shortage?
Spencer blamed the Interior Department and the National Park Service, both parent agencies of the Park Police, as well as Congress.
“We’re supposed to have a minimum of 650 officers,” the police union head said, but “the National Park Service, for some reason … [has] come up with some number that says … we need 639 officers.”
But “they can’t tell me where they get that number from,” Spencer said, referring to the National Park Service.
U.S. Park Police’s current strength is 515 sworn officers, he told The Daily Signal.
Neither the Park Police nor the National Park Service responded to emails seeking comment from The Daily Signal last Thursday.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, sent a letter Friday to National Park Service Director Charles Sams asking for body-cam footage from Park Police officers deployed July 24 at Columbus Circle.
Cruz said the request is an attempt to get answers explaining why Park Police appeared to be ill-prepared for a riot.
Two political appointees of the Biden-Harris administration in the Interior Department, Lily Greenberg Call and Maryam Hassanein, resigned in May and July, respectively, citing the administration’s support for Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
Israel went to war with Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza Strip, after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 and kidnapped about 250 in a rampage of rape, torture, and murder Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
The Daily Signal asked Spencer what he thought, as a Park Police officer, about U.S. government employees who chose to publicly express sentiments similar to those espoused by anti-Israel protesters at Columbus Circle.
“Nobody who’s appointed should be expressing their political views when you work for the federal government, especially at that level,” the union president for Park Police said.
Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an Aug. 8 email to the Daily Signal that the two employees who resigned didn’t work for Park Police.
Schwartz declined to comment on whether the Interior Department is concerned about the rise of pro-Palestine, anti-Israel protests in and around the nation’s capital and whether the Israel-Hamas war has politicized the government agency.
The 29 Park Police officers deployed July 24 to Columbus Circle appeared to be overwhelmed as the protest rally turned into a riot and some officers were thrown around by protesters.
U.S. Capitol Police officers were reinforced by 200 officers from the New York Police Department ahead of the D.C. protests. The Daily Signal asked Capitol Police whether its officers stepped in to assist Park Police at any point.
Spokeswoman Brianna Burch said July 29 that Capitol Police officers responded to Union Station to assist Park Police during the riot. Their number didn’t include NYPD officers, she said.
However, video from that day shows Capitol Police officers on the periphery of Columbus Circle, over 80 yards from where some anti-Israel protesters were assaulting police officers and burning U.S. flags.
Asked to clarify whether Capitol Police officers stepped foot inside Columbus Circle that day, Burch responded: “Other agencies made a bunch of arrests at Columbus Circle, while our teams were holding our police line firm in order to protect the joint meeting of Congress—our mission.”
It is less than a mile’s walk from Union Station to the Capitol, where Netanyahu spoke to Congress.
The Daily Signal asked Spencer whether Park Police officers stationed outside Union Station ever called Capitol Police for backup.
Spencer, who was patrolling elsewhere at the time of the riot, said he didn’t know. He said he was confused why Capitol Police officers didn’t respond, considering that they could see the violence unfolding by anti-Israel protesters outside Union Station.
Ultimately, he deferred to Capitol Police command staff.
Capitol Police and Park Police officials didn’t respond to follow-up emails from The Daily Signal.
D.C. Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Lee Lepe wouldn’t disclose when or how many D.C. police officers responded to Columbus Circle. But Lepe said in a July 29 email that they charged three protesters with crossing a police line and two others with assaulting a police officer.
Capitol Police reported making six arrests that day, all within the Capitol building itself.
The Washington Post reported that U.S. Park Police made eight arrests that day and was trying to identify six others who committed vandalism and related offenses.
The day after the Columbus Circle violence and vandalism, House Republicans introduced a bill that would allow the deportation of noncitizens on student visas who publicly support Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations.
