Ex-Phoenix chief Michael Sullivan named head of U.S. Capitol Police

A former top police executive in Phoenix, Baltimore and Louisville will become the first chief of the U.S. Capitol Police from outside the Washington area in decades, as the 2,300-officer police force confronts mounting threats to lawmakers four years after the 2021 Capitol riot.

Michael G. Sullivan, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, will be sworn in June 30 after serving as interim Phoenix police chief from 2022 until this April, according to congressional officials who announced his selection. He previously served three years each as deputy chief in Louisville and as deputy commissioner in Baltimore.

Sullivan, 55, was tapped to continue the transformation of the force after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The agency is charged with protecting 535 lawmakers and about 200 square blocks in and around the Capitol. Funding and hiring have surged: The department is on track to reach 2,530 sworn officers by September 2026, while ranks of the D.C. police have fallen to about 3,200 from 3,600. At the same time, politics in the capital - and over policing and First Amendment protests - have grown more divisive.

Supporters praised Sullivan’s leadership through changes in the Phoenix and Baltimore departments under U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigations for alleged abuses against Black people, including police killings. He left Louisville, where he began as a police officer in 1995, months before the 2020 fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker, in a botched search warrant. He arrived in Baltimore as it reeled from the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, 25, after a ride in a police van.

“Here is someone who is experienced with police reform and consent decrees. He was hired in Baltimore and Phoenix to reform those departments. That is who he is,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank that assisted in the hiring search.

Sullivan will bring first-hand knowledge of how to manage changes to use-of-force policies, training and officer accountability, and has ensured “that necessary reforms were made in a meaningful and sustainable manner,” the Capitol Police Board said in a statement.

The board, whose three members are appointed by congressional leaders to oversee the department, added that “across three major U.S. cities, Michael Sullivan has focused on increasing transparency, improving departmental efficiency, and fostering strong relationships between officers, elected officials, and the community.” A spokeswoman declined further comment.

Sullivan takes over at a sensitive time for police in and around Washington - where both law enforcement and the people they protect are wary of the potential abuse of federal police authority. Last month, congressional Democrats introduced legislation to shift control of the U.S. Marshals Service from the Justice Department to the federal judiciary, as judges voice growing concern over President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on judges who rule against his policies.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to test the limits of executive power, such as through his rare use this week of U.S. military force on domestic soil by deploying the National Guard and Marines over the opposition of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in response to immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles.

Trump also has sought to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, in which some of his supporters breached the building and assaulted about 140 officers, forcing the evacuation of lawmakers as they met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Sullivan’s predecessor as Capitol Police chief, the recently retired J. Thomas Manger, criticized Trump’s blanket pardons of nearly all of roughly 1,600 defendants, including hundreds charged with assaulting police.

Speaking in January before Trump took office, Manger - who was hired to rebuild the department after the devastating security failures of that day and who previously led the Fairfax and Montgomery County police departments in suburban Washington - said such pardons would send a message that the safety of officers does not matter and could risk politicizing the law enforcement of violent protests.

Sullivan declined through a representative to comment for this article.

Manger said, “Chief Sullivan has extensive experience and a great reputation. He is joining a superior Capitol Police leadership team and I wish him all the best.”

Still, events continue to cast a shadow over the Capitol and its police force.

“January 6th is in the rearview mirror of every police executive who comes to the Capitol,” Wexler said.

In its statement, the Capitol Police Board said that it “is confident in Chief Sullivan’s experience, leadership, and approach in protecting the Congress as an institution to ensure the legislative process is unimpeded.”

The department proposed a $1 billion budget next year and is on track to roughly double the 1,300 officers it fielded during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon but failed to reach a fourth target in D.C., potentially the Capitol.

Threats against members of Congress and their families have more than doubled over a decade, including a 2022 hammer attack against the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and a 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice that wounded House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) and three others.

Threats reached a “staggering” 9,400 last year and are likely to increase “given the current political climate,” Manger told lawmakers last month. Requests for additional protected events, details, security escorts, monitoring at airports, counter-electronic surveillance sweeps and home and office assessments have also climbed, as have resources for intelligence and counter-riot units.

Choosing a Washington outsider as chief is a change for Congress. Since the Capitol Police chief position was established in 1979 - before then a senior D.C. police official held the role - the Capitol Police Board has hired veterans of the D.C. and Supreme Court police, Secret Service and other nearby local law enforcement agencies.

Close familiarity with the region’s slew of agencies helps with planned security events such as inaugurations and unplanned emergencies. On Jan. 6, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund called a former colleague and assistant chief at D.C. police to rush riot police to the scene, which helped delay the breach.

This month, however, the union representing Capitol Police officers said that while it wanted a chief promoted from within the department, it opposed the naming of acting chief Sean P. Gallagher, a Sund and Manger deputy, saying he lost the trust of rank-and-file members for failing to prepare officers for that day.

“We welcome Chief Sullivan with open arms, as we would any chief,” union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said. He added that the union expected to work with the chief and that, as with many police departments across the country, officer staffing and morale remain challenges.

Former Baltimore police commissioner Michael S. Harrison, who recruited Sullivan to his team in 2019, said he would bring a fresh and broadened perspective to the role, and an apolitical approach. While the Trump administration recently said it would drop police accountability agreements in cities including Louisville and close investigations of civil rights violations in cities including Phoenix, a consent decree remains in effect in Baltimore, where the Justice Department has reported that injuries in police transports have dropped and officer use of mental health and wellness resources is up.

“Any stakeholder … with the Capitol Police can expect him to lead with integrity - to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do - and not to lead based on any political agenda,” Harrison said.

“He has been everywhere from the center of the country [Louisville], to the east coast, to the west coast now in executive roles. He has seen a little bit of everything, and has had to deal with everything from different perspectives,” Harrison said. “I think he is well-rounded and brings a lot to the table.”