Yesterday Rep. Jamaal Bowman triggered a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building. He says it was because he was heading out to the Capitol Building to vote on the continuing resolution to keep the government open. The door he used is normally open, but on Saturday it was locked and had a confusing sign posted. He thought he needed to pull the alarm to open the door.
Republicans have a different story. They say Bowman did it because he wanted to trigger an alarm that would delay the vote. Republican House members say this was outrageous behavior and some have called for his resignation.
I believe Bowman. The reason is this picture:
The picture was released by Republicans on the House Administration Committee, but the full surveillance video wasn't. This is classic Republican ratfuckery: release some small snippet of evidence that looks suspicious and gets splashed all over the news, but is later found to be benign when the entire context becomes public.
There's no reason to believe anything Republicans say about this unless they release the entire video. If and when they do, I'll lay long odds that it shows Bowman acting a bit confused, then pulling the alarm and leaving the building.
Assuming, of course, that Republicans ever let us see the surveillance video. Which they probably won't.
I saw that the Republicans' golfer-warlord (as Jonathan Chait called him) called for Bowman to be "prosecuted and imprisoned."
At least he didn't say he should be executed.
P.S. I do like how he says "prosecuted and imprisoned." Says nothing about convicting in front of a jury.
IF he intended to pull the alarm in some misguided plan to delay the vote (and doesn't make sense to do so in Cannon), I can guarantee that no Representative would pull the alarm himself, they would send the intern to do it!
they def wouldn't do it themselves. everyone working in the capital building is well aware of the surveillance cameras.
He either did something stupid, stupidly or did something nasty stupidly.
Can't say much for the wording or the font sizes. This one looks pretty inviting compared to the emergency exit signs in stores, theaters, restaurants. If I was in a frazzled hurry I might try it.
Begs the question, why was a doorway that is normally open now closed?
Open on weekdays and closed on Saturday?
Think so, it's pretty common in larger office buildings. Kind of confused why it's rigged to a fire alarm though, the more I think about it. Why is this necessary? It's just a regular door on weekdays, right?
Rep. Bowman is innocent
Since when does THAT matter? There must be investigations! Hearings! Censure! No detail is too unimportant to quibble over a few hundred thousand taxpayer dollars' worth of member and staff time.
And let's be clear: this is not just about a "fire alarm," no no! For example, do we know whether there was any contact between the White House and Bowman prior to the incident? No we do not! Do we know whether Nancy Pelosi or the Squad had anything to do with it? No we do not! Is this perhaps just a means to distract from the Impeachment hearings of Joe Biden? We don't know! How can we put it past them? Ohhh, this could go DEEP, people, very deep, and we must get to the bottom of it!
He was, however, stupid. The sign clearly says emergency exit only. An emergency is not having to get to the capital so you will be on time for a vote. Like most people serving in Congress, he has an overinflated opinion of his importance. I am sure he was frustrated by being unable to use the door. However, most of us regular folk would curse under our breath and go and find another door. They will not risk setting an alarm, especially when it is labeled a fire alarm.
Emergency exit only. Hello.
Kevin McCarthy and the GOP are also stupid for making a big deal about it. But if they hadn't, would we have known about it all? Just let a Republican pull a stunt like that. CNN would talk about it for days and infer all sorts of evil behind it. Nancy Pelosi would speak about how worried she is about decorum and proper behavior in the Cannon Building. Republicans gone wild.
If doing something stupid was a crime, all the Republicans would be in jail with multiple life sentences.
I didn't say it was a crime. So, no stupid Democrats? Are you that stupid to think that the Democrats are all brilliant? And, yes, Republicans can be very stupid. Donald Trump has been very stupid and may get locked up for it.
I apologize. I am feeding a troll. Must stop.
So where did I say you said it was a crime? I just made a general comment. Everything not always about you.
OK. But then your comment was not a reply. It was a statement. You could have put it in main thread and not as a reply to my comment.
Always the victim.
We know.
Hmmm. Going to stop digging now.
it was stupid, but i'd say getting to a vote to prevent the shutdown of the federal government is an emergency.
If it was so important to him, then perhaps leaving a little early would have been prudent.
Or you know, Republicans could have not waited till the last minute to get their shit together....
Even if it was a stupid thing to do, it was stupid-safe, not stupid-wreckless.
Like most people serving in Congress, he has an overinflated opinion of his importance. I am sure he was frustrated by being unable to use the door.
You're not sure of anything because you have no firsthand knowledge of the situation. The only evidence we have—photographic—suggests very, very poorly worded, confusing signage. Also, one doesn't have to have a huge ego to be in a hurry. As for Bowman's alleged stupidity, he got himself elected to Congress. What's your biggest accomplishment?
I didn't say Bowman was stupid, I said he did something stupid.
That's pretty addled thinking, the door I usually use seems to have a sign on it for me to pull a fire alarm to use it?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ OK, here goes ...
You are in a hurry to make a House vote. You come across this door that you use all the time. How the f’ can it be an emergency entrance? It doesn’t state “On Saturday and Sunday this door is an emergency exit.” So you jump to the conclusion it must be some quirk and push the door open. I find the sign confusing if the door is open during weekdays. Most signs state special qualifiers if they are not emergency exits that set off fire alarms 24/7.
So you jump to the conclusion it must be some quirk and push the door open.
Well, that's one of the confusing parts: did he merely push the door open (thereby triggering an alarm?) or did he actually pull down the switch on the standard, wall-mounted red fire alarm? My impression is it's the latter. But I'm not sure.
What I am sure is Kevin's right: it's GOP standard-issue ratfuckery because, whatever the particulars, it's clearly an honest mistake: the wording of that signage is piss-poor. And also, what did he have to gain by summoning the DC Fire Department? Simply zero motive...
Better to follow procedure and thought a fool than to do otherwise while knowing full well you may cause harm by not doing it by the book.
I notice that it's the dimmer members of Kevin's commentariat who seem to be all het up at being thought a fool, BYW. And I couldn't care less if the likes of them leveled that accusation at me.
Apparently he thought he could go through a door he wasn't supposed to go through without being caught. That was pretty stupid but I don't see how it makes him innocent.
How would a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building cause a House vote taking place in the Capitol building to be delayed?
This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I’m confused. The first photo is of a sign with white lettering on a red background, that appears to be propped on the panic bar of a door. The doors in the second photo have signs with, apparently, more, smaller black text on a white background; the signs appear to be stuck on to the lowermost lights (window panes) in the doors, above the panic bars. How do these relate? Why don’t the doors appear to bear any highlight color at all? There appears to be a freestanding sign about two meters before the doors. What is its purpose, and what is the text?
Also, the Cannon Building is over a century old. Did a door, formerly a normal entry/exit door, just get ‘promoted’ to an emergency exit only? If so, when was it wired into the alarm system? Were there memos advising building occupants of the change?
I gotta add this: https://youtu.be/ZOenlU1qATY?si=EWGPMNleDDNHL8Nz
The wording on the sign is clear.
It is an emergency exit. If you push on the bar for 3 seconds a fire alarm will sound. To open you push a full 30 seconds.
Bowman knew he was going to set off an alarm. He may have thought that was OK to let him get through the door, but I doubt he would have thought so if a J6 protester did it.
We have a new standard for how we treat people who obstruct official proceedings, established in the J6 prosecutions. It should apply to all, including Jamaal Bowman.
the wording on the sign is clear. It is an emergency exit. If you push on the bar for 3 seconds a fire alarm will sound.
There's no mention of a "fire" alarm. That's something your lying trollery made up. Or maybe you're just not a very skilled reader.
The signage also provides no details as to the ramifications of sounding the alarm (save that the door will open), nor indicates sounding said alarm is prohibited. In some cases turning off an alarm is a trivial matter for building security.
The country's ability to pay its bills was ostensibly on the line (I'm not sure if Bowman knew what the vote margin was going to be; do you?), so in any event that's arguably "an emergency." The fact that many treasonous MAGAts are blasé about the full faith and credit of the United States doesn't mean the rest of us should be.
We have a new standard for how we treat people who obstruct official proceedings
No we do not. The relevant law is more than two decades old. And in this case, since official proceedings were not obstructed, it's also not relevant.
You expect the likes of MF to be skilled at anything? Even their trollery is weak.
Note that the video snippet doesn't show the propped up signs in the windows. I think it's debatable how clear the wording of those signs are -- they seem rather obtuse to me -- but if they weren't there when he tried to leave the building, whatever the signs say is irrelevant.
And it should hardly be worth mentioning: attempting to get out of a building and momentarily panicking about how to do it is in NO WAY SIMILAR to intentionally breaking into and illegally entering Congress.
I would like to expand upon the incongruities noted in my previous comment between the image made from the video and the separate photo showing the door on the sign.
1) When was this second image taken (and by whom), and why was the sign not displayed when Rep. Bowman tried to exit through the door?
2) Why would an emergency exit be locked during a special session of Congress when the occupancy of the Cannon Building is presumably very high?
3) Presuming there are a large number of occupants in the building for such special sessions, wouldn't this weekend door-locking policy potentially pose a grave danger if there truly was an emergency? Imagine a few dozen representatives and staff running toward this door thinking it's their best way out. Emergency egress regulations for large-occupancy buildings usually forbid any system which depends upon reading sets of instructions or contains other delaying elements. Here we not only have a sign with multiple steps for releasing the lock on the door, but a 30-second delay until it opens!
My third point hopefully makes clear that the real scandal shouldn't be Rep. Bowman's quite understandable mistake, but the death trap that this building poses for our representatives.
I’m with you. An emergency exit with a 30-second delay? When active-shooter incidents are a near-daily occurrence? If I saw that sign, I would think I was being pranked.
More proof that without bad faith…..
Republicans would have no arguments at all
Your theory is that he didn't realize pulling the fire alarm would cause the alarm to go off? He thought that lever that said "Fire Alarm" was the thing you use to open the door?
Really?
Also, you notice how the sign is not on the door in the video capture? Is it just me, or is Bowman holding it in his left hand? Did he take it with him to the alarm, just in case he needed to refer to the instructions again?
Republican members trying to burn the House (and country) down; Democrat triggers the fire alarm. Which is worse?
Most of the discussion here is irrelevant to the question of Rep. Bowman’s possible guilt. Republicans seem to be asserting a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) — “corruptly” obstructing, impeding or interfering with any official government proceeding. So intent is an element of the offense. There’s no denying Rep. Bowman caused the alarm. But if his intent was to disrupt the vote taking place in the House chamber, in the Capitol, why did he pull an alarm in the Cannon House Office Building? Even if the alarm is designed to sound campus-wide, does anyone seriously believe that Bowman had studied the functioning of the alarm system?
Because the most likely answer was Bowman was running behind and tried to take a shortcut. Bowman, probably, ignored the alarm sign or figured this was a minor offense.
Because this is normal, silly, politics.
Agree.
Honestly it never made sense to me that he would want to delay the vote. The government not shutting down is a good thing for Democrats.
USCP: "On security video, a man was seen trying to exit the door in the Cannon Building and then pulling the fire alarm that prompted the evacuation."
https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/uscp-investigating-cannon-building-evacuation
So there you go. Confused, he pulled the alarm thinking that's how he could get the door to open.
The door is called a delayed egress door. It has a local alarm on it, not connected to the fire alarm, and as the sign says after 30 seconds the door opens.
It is used in different occupancy types like nursing homes, where you don’t want the patients eloping out of the building without being noticed, or stores to discourage shoplifting.
The fire alarm manual pull station, which is usually within 5 feet of the exit door, will initiate the fire alarm.
As previous posters said I believe he was confused.