24:22 Tariq Johnson spent 22 years as a Capitol Police officer. On January 6th, he says he was in charge of securing the certification of the presidential election so he was right in the middle of it if anyone was Tariq Johnson once here's more of our sit-down interview with him Mr. Johnson thank you for joining us and thank you for having me So from the outside here's how it looked we now know that huge parts of the federal government were aware that there was going to be something big happening at the Capitol on January 6 they knew they're gonna be big demonstrations And they prepared for that. But the Capitol Police, on which you served for 22 years did not seem prepared at all and of course that would be the front line in preparedness Was the Capitol police prepared for that day? The frontline officers and supervisors were not prepared for that at all
25:13 When you say that, so you had no idea it was coming? We knew that there was going to be a demonstration that day. But we had no idea that we were going to be facing what we faced on that actual day So things start to fall apart people stream in the building You call upwards in the command chain Help me! You don't get a response What do you do next? So around 2 o'clock It may have been a little bit after two o'clock I hear an officer say that the Capitol was breached. So, I ran inside of the building Ran you know just to assist I knew that That location of where the first breach occurred was near where the members of Congress would be locked in We initiated a lockdown so that means the chamber doors on the Senate side and the House our lock So that means the members of Congress will be safe inside them those log rooms. Yes, so I ran over to The house at first and make sure those door
26:09 Those were locked then I ran over to the Senate side to make sure those doors will lock so I asked over the radio and I say something To the effect that we need direction. We have hundreds of people inside of the building What do you want us to do? We need some direction. I got in I heard no response No response, so You know at that particular time how could nobody responded nobody responded At some point you put on a man down Yes, now I think we have it. I think we have the actual mag. Yes We actually do have the mega hag a habit here in plastic So here it is want to take J6 it says yeah label 2j 6 so tell us why you put the hat on and how that was related to your Well bench, that's what got me national attention was the wearing of the mega head They were officers if we had a distress call that they were Approximately 10 or 11 officers. I can't remember exact number with trapped at the top of the rotunda step
27:04 So I enlisted the help of some CDU officers to help me go up the steps and I kept yelling that all the way up The steps giving people high-fives trying to make it up the steps to get two guys. And as I was going down there was a demonstrated on, I believe he was on my right side of me. So he reached over and I didn't know what he was doing. I didn't know if it's going to hit me and he put the MAGA hat on my head so as i was still trying to walk down the steps then he asked for the hat back and I said well I would like to keep it because You know, the hacks want to help me. It's your passport through the crowd! Yeah exactly So the Capitol Police is by definition nonpartisan it serves both parties in Congress and protects members of both parties 100% And it has to be that way In the wake of January 6 you saw what looked like partisanship
27:55 At the Capitol Police. Did you perceive that? I'm still shocked because as a Capitol police officer We even had him we had our chief of police at the time his name was well Steven son and he um, he called for a all the officers who was at work that day He called for everybody to come in and we all went to we all went to Emancipation Hall in the CBC. And this was during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and he told us that as Capitol Police officers we need to stay neutral. We needed to stay neutral period. So we were like okay thats what we do because we protect Democrats, we protect Republicans, we protect everybody so we needed to stay neutral. Then after January 6th you had
28:45 Some police officers who wasn't neutral. It didn't seem neutral at all Yeah, and that was an issue Yes So I mean that devalues the credibility of Capitol Police doesn't if they're allowed to be partisan in public They're supposed to be neutral period since you were there on January 6th What did you think of the job of the January 6 committee? Do you think that they are were honest in the way they approached it, do you think they got to the truth? I prayed almost daily that they would get to me. Um...I was never asked to testify and if you listen to the radio... You were never asked by the January 6th committee? I was never asked by anybody connected to the January 6th um..committee to testify. Um....I ask myself why every day
29:30 And every day I might have a different answer, but you know looked at what pretty much they focused on Donald Trump and not the failures of the Capitol Police. Why do you think they were there? had planned on being violent. Some people may have turned violent after what they were going through I think that People wanted to support their president They wanted to some of those people want it just to support him and some of those people Didn't commit violence and some of those people didn't plan on We haven't answered every question about what actually happened on January 6th. Far from it, there are still many mysteries from that day but one thing we know for certain is that the story they told you about it—a pat-tail of good versus evil an insurrection with no guns! That took place at the U.S Capitol those were lies and they were lies told for a very specific purpose Of course, the people in power wanted more power And they got it on the basis of those lies