by For the third year in a row, an eight-foot black metal fence will surround the US Capitol complex during a speech to Congress by President Joe Biden. The fence was erected this weekend and will remain in place through at least Wednesday, surrounding the 175,000-square-foot Capitol complex.
The fence, which is plastered with signs reading “Area Closed by Order of the US Capitol Police Board,” has become an increasingly common and controversial security measure in the two years following the US Capitol attack of 6 January 2021.
“It’s traumatizing for our children and sends a message that something is wrong with our country and our Capitol,” said Denise Krepp, a mother of two, who is raising her children in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Krepp she told CBS News she and other parents are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the commanding image of police fencing. “Our kids are seeing this and asking their parents ‘What’s wrong? Why are we barricaded again?'”
The fence was ordered by the US Capitol Police Council, a group of congressional security officials that oversees the Capitol area but whose meetings and reports are not made public.
A president’s State of the Union address to Congress is routinely designated a special national security event by federal national security officials, allowing for temporary and significant increases in security precautions and manpower. In a statement, Capitol Police said, “National special security events require a robust security plan, so out of an abundance of caution, the US Secret Service and US Capitol Police have temporarily erected a fence around the United States Capitol”.
Safety officials set up the same eight-foot wire fence soon after the incident Attack on the Capitol in 2021. He reappeared several times over the next several months, including before a Sept. 18, 2021 protest by supporters of the Jan. 6 felony defendants and former President Donald Trump.
Similar fences were also erected around the US Supreme Court for weeks in 2022, following the release of a draft opinion indicating the court was ready to overturn the abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade from 1973.
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a longtime Democratic delegate representing the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives, told CBS News she plans to introduce legislation to ban any permanent fencing on the Capitol grounds.
“Already, the gap between the government and the people has grown, with trust in government at an all-time low,” Holmes Norton said. “We shouldn’t further reinforce this distance by placing intimidating barriers between us civil servants and the people we serve, especially when those barriers are neither effective nor necessary.”
Several federal law enforcement officials told CBS News they were unaware of any specific or credible threats to the Capitol, though they said they cited an “heightened threat environment” and widespread attention that the state of the art address ‘Union usually attracts.
US Capitol Police reports show a substantial number of investigations into threats against members of Congress. Over 7,000 investigations were conducted in 2022, with nearly 10,000 investigations in 2021. Both represented a dramatic increase in annual totals over the 2010s.
Justice Department prosecutors have filed a series of recent criminal cases against individuals accused of making death threats to congressional representatives of both sides. They also opened a federal case against the California man accused of assaulting the husband of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In Maryland, federal prosecutors have charged a man with traveling across the country to attempt to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the suburb of Chevy Chase, Md.
Assemblyman Glenn Ivey, Democrat of Maryland, said, “Impassable fencing should not be a metaphor for the United States Congress. We must overcome division, discord, and address discontent; not barricade ourselves against it.” Ivey added, “I believe in our Capitol Police, and first responders and precautions like these are needed. However, it is a sad state of affairs and a sign of our times that barriers must be erected to keep democracy protected in action.” .
Holmes Norton said the fence is affecting neighborhoods and businesses, preventing deliveries and blocking access to first responders. “Any time a fence is erected around the Capitol, it should fall as soon as possible,” she said.
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