As the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riots approach, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police says the department's members would be able to stop a similar disturbance.
"I believe we can, and I don't say that as a challenge to anybody, " Chief Tom Manger said in an interview with ABC News. "But I do believe we can. I mean, one, when you look at what went wrong on (Jan. 6), we didn't have enough people, there were training issues, equipment issues. You know, there were things that we—that with regard to intelligence that we probably should have addressed, but we didn't."
Manger added that those issues—many of them outlined in a bipartisan report on the Capitol attack—have been addressed. Some of the issues cited in the report concerned widespread security failures around information unearthed to potentially breach the Capitol.
During the attack, 140 officers were injured clashing with rioters. While many officers returned to duty fairly quickly, some are still out because of their injuries.
"The healing process is happening, and we're doing everything we can to provide assistance to these officers," Manger said. "What we had in place prior to Jan. 6 for employee wellness and employee assistance is minuscule compared to what we have in place today."
The department also is struggling to keep its ranks filled. Although Manger says recruitment hasn't been a problem, the force is still down a significant number of officers.
"We've had no trouble recruiting people to join the Capital Police Department," he said. "Of course, our challenge is to make sure we're hiring the right people in terms of our staffing. We are right now probably at least 200 people down from where we were a couple of years ago, and we're about 400 people down from where we should be."
