SPECIAL REPORT OF THE OCWR GENERAL COUNSEL ON THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH CONCERNS ARISING OUT OF THE EVENTS OF JANUARY 6, 2021 OCWR CASE NO. OSH 2021-01

Introduction

When it was apparent that the events of January 6, 2021 resulted in the death and injury of USCP officers, we decided it was necessary to open this investigation. The video evidence of the attack on the U.S. Capitol depicted numerous USCP officers defending themselves and the Capitol with little in the way of personal protective equipment (PPE). Lack of PPE is often symptomatic of larger occupational safety and health (OSH) programmatic deficiencies, since providing PPE is the last step in an analytical process that includes a job hazard analysis (JHA) to identify potential hazards involved in specific job duties, the implementation of engineering and administrative controls to minimize the identified hazards, and then the use of PPE to minimize the risk posed by hazards that cannot be controlled by other means.1

To assist us in assessing and evaluating the adequacy of the JHAs and the hazard controls that were implemented, which involves considering the well-recognized hazards involved in policing and crowd control as well as the engineering, administrative, and PPE controls available to police departments, we hired Safir Intelligence and Security (SIS) to provide assistance. The team that SIS has assembled for this investigation is managed by Adam Safir and includes an impressive group of law enforcement professionals whose names and credentials include: Howard Safir (Commissioner, FDNY, NYPD and Director of Operations for the U.S. Marshals Service), Terry Gainer (USCP Chief and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms), Joe Dunne (Chief Security Officer, PAPD and 1st Deputy Police Commissioner, NYPD), William Morange (Chief of Police, Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA)), Daniel Oates, Esq. (Head of Intelligence Division, NYPD; Chief of Police in Ann Arbor, Aurora and Miami Beach), and Nancy McGillivray (former U.S. Marshal for the District of Massachusetts). This team’s members include individuals with expertise in PPE, weapons, officer training, research and planning, strategic budgeting and procurement, intelligence analysis and dissemination, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), emergency medical response, and trauma recovery.