Pressley's chief of staff said her office's panic buttons 'had been torn out' before Capitol riot
Rep.
Ayanna Pressley’s (D-Mass.) chief of staff, Sarah Groh, said in a recent interview that panic buttons she had previously used in the congresswoman’s office had been taken out before the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol last week.
Groh said that she, Pressley and her husband, Conan Harris, had arrived at Capitol Hill early that day after the House sergeant-at-arms urged lawmakers to do so to avoid large crowds as hundreds of the president’s supporters had flocked to D.C. to oppose the November election results.
“I was deeply concerned. It felt like the heat was being turned up in terms of the rhetoric and Trump’s aims to incite violence,” she told the Globe.
It wasn’t long after, however, that a pro-Trump mob overtook the U.S. Capitol as Congress was gearing up to certify votes by the Electoral College that affirmed his defeat in the presidential race.
Around that time, Groh said, she discovered the office’s panic buttons had been removed while she and the other staffers were working to secure the office’s entrance using available furniture and water jugs.
“Every panic button in my office had been torn out — the whole unit,” Groh said, despite noting she had previously used the buttons in that same office. Groh said in the interview that she did not know why the buttons had been removed.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s (D-Mass.) chief of staff, Sarah Groh, said in a recent interview that panic buttons she had previously used in the congresswoman’s office had been taken out before the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol last week.
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