rotunda before Dave Bowdich and I got there.
- BY :
Q That's helpful.
And when you say the assembly area, I think we need for the record, where were you specifically?
A It's on D Street. I think it's in my notes that were provided, but I can't remember exact cross street. Maybe it's 1st. Somewhere over there. It's near the Dirksen Senate Building. It's just a large parking lot. It was a predesignated assembly area that everybody went to so that we could tactically move into the Capitol.
Q And what happened after you arrived to the rotunda, if you could describe to us what you saw?
A We got to the assembly area. We found a Capitol Police officer who could lead us in.
That police officer, I think, took us first to Chief Sund's office, the head of the Capitol Police. We checked in with him very briefly. We told him we were going into the Capitol, that we were there to provide whatever assistance we could, that we had, obviously, ATF and FBI and Marshals and other units who were, as he knew, ready to provide whatever assistance they needed. He thanked us. We went on our way.
We went into the Dirksen Building. We went through the tunnels and came up somewhere near the rotunda, not directly in the rotunda, but somewhere near the rotunda. And then we moved into the rotunda area where there were hundreds of mostly Capitol Police officers, but other law enforcement as well.
I did not see any protestors at that point. You could smell that there had been some chemical agents used, pepper spray or something like that.
And I found Ashan Benedict, who was the ATF special agent in charge there in the
