The assistant chief of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), Chad Thomas, resigned from his post on Monday, becoming the latest official to leave the department amid the fallout from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“For your awareness, USCP Assistant Chief Chad Thomas is no longer serving as Commander of Uniformed Operations and will be separating from the department,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a notification to lawmakers obtained by The Hill.
The Capitol Police union revealed last month that more than 70 officers have left the department since Jan. 6, when an angry mob of pro-Trump supporters descended on the Capitol. The day after the insurrection, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund announced his resignation.
The Capitol Police’s internal watchdog in April revealed that officers were unprepared for the insurrection after leaders failed to communicate intelligence about specific calls for violence and officers were given aging and improperly stored equipment.
Michael Bolton, the Capitol Police’s inspector general, testified before Congress that month that the department needs a fundamental “culture change” to adequately protect the seat of American democracy and prevent another deadly attack.
He specifically said the USCP needs to “move away from the thought process as a traditional Police Department and move to the posture as a Protective Agency.”
Lawmakers have since tried to reform the Capitol Police board, but their actions have been met with resistance from the building’s top security officers.
When asked if the Capitol Police board should be reformed at a congressional hearing last month, the House sergeant-at-arms responded, “No.”
Thomas’s resignation comes a day ahead of an expected report from Senate lawmakers reviewing the roles of the USCP and other agencies in protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The news of Thomas’s departure comes five months after the attack, which injured approximately 140 USCP and D.C. police officers and led to the deaths of three others.
USCP officer Brian Sicknick died the day after Jan. 6 from natural causes after suffering two strokes, and two other officers, one from the Capitol Police and another from the D.C. police, died by suicide days later.
Thomas first joined the Capitol Police in 1996, according to Politico, and served as assistant chief of police for uniformed operations. He was first appointed to the position in an acting capacity in 2019.
Confidence in Thomas at the department, however, was in decline following the insurrection. Politico reported that in a February union ballot, 96 percent of voting officers gave him a vote of no confidence.
Additionally, acting chief Yogananda Pittman, who took over for Sund in an acting capacity following his resignation, saw a large rebuke from her officers: 92 percent of voting officers gave her a vote of no confidence.