Two Seattle police officers who were at the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have been fired, the police chief said Friday.
The officers were not accused of entering the building but were found to have crossed barriers and were directly next to it, Police Chief Adrian Diaz said in a statement.
"It is beyond absurd to suggest that they did not know they were in an area where they should not be, amidst what was already a violent, criminal riot," Diaz said.
Discipline reports identify the officers as Caitlin Everett and Alexander Everett. Police would not say whether there is any relationship between the two and required a public disclosure request to be made, but The Associated Press reported that they are married.
Neither has been criminally charged.
Police discipline action reports say that the two now-fired officers told investigators they were 30 to 50 yards from the Capitol and saw no signs of a disturbance, just people standing in the grass and waving flags.
Police said in the reports that video stills from the FBI showed the Everetts directly next to the Capitol building and that "Nearby, and within your line of vision, numerous people were scaling a stone wall to the Capital steps, climbing the scaffolding, and crowds were surrounding the building."
"It defies belief that you could think this situation was 'peaceful' or that you were not on notice that you were trespassing," the police discipline report reads.
Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, called the case against the officers vague. He said the video stills lack timestamps, and the officers say they did not know they were in a restricted area.
"We understand the optics of this ... " the union president said. "Our issue is, the case file does not back the claim that these officers witnessed criminality. They're on record saying they did not witness any."
The firings come around a month after the Office of Police Accountability recommended that two officers be fired, without naming them.
It investigated six officers in all who were at the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6 and found three didn't violate policies or break any laws. The investigation into the fourth was inconclusive, the board said.
More than 100 Washington, D.C., and Capitol police officers were injured in the Jan. 6 attack, in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as Congress was formally counting the electoral votes affirming Joe Biden's presidential win. The attack followed repeated false claims by then-President Donald Trump that the election was fraudulent or stolen, including in a speech just before the riot.
"These two officers were present at an attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was also an attack on our profession and on every officer across the country," Diaz, the police chief, said in the statement.
He called the two Seattle officers' presence "a stain on our department."
Solan said he did not know whether either officer plans to appeal the termination. Phone numbers for the two officers could not immediately be found.
Five police officers who responded to the riot have since died, four of them by suicide, officials have said.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered a stroke in the immediate aftermath of the riot, died of natural causes, according to a medical examiner.
More than 570 people have been arrested across the country following the Jan. 6 attack, according to the Justice Department, and the investigation is ongoing. Some of those arrested and charged were police officers.
