3 Capitol Police officers reassigned after bomb goes undiscovered

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Three top supervisors of the U.S. Capitol Police bomb squad have been reassigned after a bomb in the truck of a man charged with approaching the Capitol with deadly weapons went undiscovered for three weeks.

Capitol Police spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider refused to say whether their transfers were a result of missing the explosive device.

But the bomb squad supervisors believe they were being made scapegoats because the bomb wasn’t discovered, a deep embarrassment to the department in charge of protecting the Capitol, sources told The Examiner.

The arrest of Michael Gorbey, who has been charged with manufacturing a weapon of mass destruction and other weapons charges, shutdown downtown D.C. during the start of a busy Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

Sources said that created heavy pressure on the unit to wrap up its search of the vehicle and reopen city streets.

As a result, the truck was towed before being thoroughly searched.

A request for a warrant to completely search the vehicle wasn’t submitted for three weeks, according to court documents.

“All three are being forced to take the fall for decisions that were made, or weren’t made, higher up the chain,” said one officer who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The bomb squad command was shipped to less glamorous jobs. The commander, Capt. Shirley J. Johnson, a 30-year-veteran who was up for a promotion to inspector, was instead sent to communications. Lt. George Hawco was shifted to internal affairs, and Sgt. Mike DeCarlo was moved to a House of Representatives security detail.

Johnson and DeCarlo said they were not allowed to speak to the media. Hawco did not return phone calls.

Schneider said dozens of officers were reassigned last month as part of an agencywide shake-up by new Chief Phillip Morse Sr.

Terrance Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms who once headed the Capitol Police, warned against jumping to conclusions on the reassignments, but he said the chief has hold people accountable. “Who should have discovered the device should come out in the after-action report,” Gainer said.

On the day of the incident, Jan. 18, the bomb technicians removed more than 100 items from the truck and placed them on the ground but failed to detect the explosive device, according to court documents.

The vehicle was declared safe and stored on a government parking lot until criminal investigators filed a warrant to search the truck on Feb. 7, court records said.

The document was signed by a D.C. Superior Court judge that day, and police executed the search the next day, court records said.

The explosive device was found wrapped in a piece of cloth behind the seat of the bench seat of the truck.

The contraption was made of a canister of gunpowder duct-taped to a box of shotgun shells.

Gorbey’s trial is expected to begin Monday.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

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