‘Whole Unit’ of Panic Buttons Found Removed From Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s Office During Pro-Trump Riot
While barricading the office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley as pro-Trump rioters descended on the U.S. Capitol last week, the congresswoman’s staffers made an alarming discovery. The office’s special panic buttons, installed for use in moments of immediate crisis, had been removed.
“Every panic button in my office had been torn out — the whole unit,” said Pressley’s chief of staff, Sarah Groh, in an interview with the Boston Globe.
As one of the four Brown and Black, female, progressive Democratic representatives comprising “The Squad” in Congress, Pressley has been subject to numerous threats of violence by Trump supporters throughout her two years in office. Because of these recurring threats to Pressley’s life and safety, Groh told the Globe that the congresswoman and her staff were accustomed to routine “safety drills and threat scenarios.” Thus, Groh knew definitively that the office panic buttons were previously operational; in fact, she had used them.
To that point, Groh told the Globe that as she, Pressley, and her husband sought safety in a new location, they “tried to remain calm and vigilant — not only of rioters but of officers they did not know or trust.”
