25 March 2021
The House chamber is being transformed into a massive safe room for members with the addition of bulletproof doors.
Why it matters: One of the most dramatic images from the Jan. 6 attack was Capitol Police officers inside the chamber holding protesters at bay by pointing their guns at them after they broke windows in the doors. The new doors will provide fresh fortification.
Details: An Axios reporter leaving the Capitol on Wednesday night saw workers removing doors on one of the double-doored entrances to the gallery one level above the floor of the chamber. Some members huddled there on Jan. 6.
- Workers revealed the new doors being installed would be fortified with kevlar — the same synthetic material used in bulletproof vests and military helmets.
- The House currently is on recess for two more weeks, and the workers said the modifications will continue beyond the members' return. There are five sets of doors directly onto the floor and 15 into the gallery.
- No other details were immediately available from the Architect of the Capitol, which maintains the historic building.
Police officers protecting an entrance to the House floor on Jan. 6. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Driving the news: Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tasked with leading a post-insurrection review of Capitol security, recommended in his report that the Architect "expedite repair and hardening of vulnerable windows and doors."
Flashback: During the Capitol siege, plainclothes officers barricaded some of the floor-level doors with furniture to prevent rioters from breaching the House chamber.
- While they held back the crowd, members were evacuated to a secure location through other doors.
- At one point, an officer shot and killed a protester who tried to climb through a broken window on a door leading into the Speaker's Lobby — located just off the chamber floor.
Members huddling in the House Gallery on Jan. 6. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.