District of Columbia officials knew of the planned protests and had requested some assistance when the "First Amendment demonstrations" were planned for Jan. 5 and 6, McCarthy said. Based on this request, officials called up 340 National Guardsmen to help. The Guardsmen were assigned mainly to traffic control, Metro crowd control, some logistics support and a 40-member quick reaction force to be based at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
"No other requests were made," the Army secretary said.
But the protests turned into a mob rioting through the halls, chambers and offices of the U.S. Capitol. At around 2 p.m., D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested more assistance. Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller immediately called up 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard.