Rep. Jamaal Bowman triggered a fire alarm in a House office building amid voting on a funding bill
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman acknowledged triggering a fire alarm Saturday in one of the U.S. Capitol office buildings as lawmakers scrambled to pass a bill to fund the government before the midnight shutdown deadline.
The fire alarm sounded out around noon in the Cannon House Office Building and prompted a building-wide evacuation at a time when the House was in session and staffers were working in the building. The building was reopened an hour later after Capitol Police determined it was not a threat.
The GOP-controlled House Administration Committee, which oversees issues pertaining to the Capitol complex, posted a picture of a person pulling the fire alarm who appeared to be Bowman.
The New York lawmaker told reporters hours later that it was a mistake and that he was rushing to get to votes and was trying to get through a door that is usually open, but was closed due to it being a weekend.
“I thought it would help me open the door,” he said about pulling the trigger, denying that it was an effort to stall anything.
Capitol Police said in a statement late Saturday that an “investigation into what happened and why continues.”
At the time of the evacuation House Democrats were working to delay a vote on a 45-day funding bill to keep federal agencies open. They said they needed time to review the 71-page bill that Republicans abruptly released to avoid a shutdown.
The funding package was ultimately approved 335-91 on Saturday afternoon, with most Republicans and almost all Democrats — including Bowman — supporting the bill.
After the vote, Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, criticized Bowman over the fire alarm. Some lawmakers even floated the idea of drafting a motion to expel or censure him from the House.
“This should not go without punishment,” McCarthy told reporters. “This is an embarrassment.”
He added that he plans to talk with the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York to figure out a possible response.
But Jeffries met with Bowman shortly after the vote and Bowman said his fellow New York colleague was “supportive.”
“He understood that it was a mistake and that’s all it was,” he said. Bowman added that the reaction from McCarthy and other Republicans is dishonest.
"(McCarthy’s) trying to weaponize a mistake of me coming, rushing to get to a vote as something nefarious when it wasn’t,” he said.
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So many felonies to charge him with under the Special Consuls expanded use of criminal statutes.
Insurrection, Civil rights violations, obstruction of Congress...
I'm sure the DOJ will apply the law fairly and in a non partisan manner and not perform an "investigation" and quietly sweep in under the rug.
“I thought it would help me open the door,” he said about pulling the trigger, denying that it was an effort to stall anything."
About what can be expected from a dopey Democrat. I'm sure it's a felony in DC to "mistakenly" pull a fire alarm.
Pretending to not know how a fire alarm works might be the worst excuse I've ever heard. He was a school principle who suspended kids for 10 days for pulling fire alarms. Even Fetterman knows how a fire alarm works.
and this clown is a Congressman?
Doesn't know how fire alarms work!
thats almost as good as AOC not knowing what a garbage disposal was!
What a hateful bastard. He wanted the government to shut down so he could blame certain people.
They passed a bill hours ago that took a little out of the other bill but is still more money being spent. It may have been good to give the House another 45 days but then they'll have to go through it again. McCarthy promised back in May that each appropriation would be discussed and voted upon one at a time in regular order. He will face the music Monday when Rep Matt Gaetz is sure to go after the Speaker's job.
Dirty commie !
no, just an ignorant ass.
oops, too late for that shit. see you at the polls in 13 months...
yes, he certainly was too late, poor idiot who can't understand how fire alarms and locked doors work.
If someone were to primary him, they should take the video of him pulling the alarm ON PURPOSE and put it on loop on their website.
Makes me wonder what qualifications he had to be a middle school principle if he can't even figure out what a device labeled "fire" means
That his "defense" is that he's a former school principle who doesn't know how fire alarms work and can't read tells you all you need to know.
he should be looking at 20 years for obstruction. No different than the people who walked around in the Capitol building on Jan 6th.
He obviously was the leader of this insurrection, so if the left follows their "principals" they should be calling for some serious prison time.
His phone should be subpoenaed to see who he was in contact with before he pulled the alarm. Was he told to?
What did Jeffries know?
That’s the new standard, isn’ it? Stretch criminal laws as far as possible and throw the book at anyone who breaks them.
the governor of New Mexico should be indicted, bowman should be indicted etc.. under the garland dojs standards.
Madeline Brame is challenging Bowman. She was a 40 year Democrat who finally saw the light and became a Republican.
That should provide a bevy of smirks and laughs.
Maybe not quite a commie, just a clueless socialist liberal Democrat like the rest of the worthless squad members!
maybe he was hoping that some gutless rwnj cowards would get trampled at the exits...
I just figured that he isn't the only NY pol who doesn't know how common things work.
First it was AOC and a garbage disposal, now its this clown and a fire alarm and locked doors.
Why would a Democratic representative attempt to sabotage funding to prevent a shutdown?......
They spent the entire run up to it trying to delay/prevent the the vote.
No doubt thinking they would "win" the politics of a shutdown.
And democratic senator Michael Bennett is preventing the senate from passing it now..
A traitor then! Or perhaps that's over the top?....
It’s become impossible to be too over the top.
He should be charged and expelled from Congress
The fuck…?
“Bowman allegedly removed emergency exit signage prohibiting ordinary use before he pulled the fire alarm.”
Bowman and Jeffries knew exactly what they were doing. The House needs to thoroughly investigate their electronic devices communications, because they allegedly committed the same federal felony crimes they accuse still-imprisoned without bail or a trial Jan 6 people of doing.
If he (they) get away with it, it would be a great defense for an appeal for all J6 defendants, citing favoritism and dual justice system for politicians and the common folk.
It's as if Garland has no choice but to throw the same charges at them as he did the J6 defendants.
Agree, but don't hold your breath for Garland to be honorable and apply the law equally to all people. He's one of the biggest scumbags in the Biden administration.
And there are many
Indeed. Including The Big Guy and the bigger guys above him/her.
if he did it intentionally, He was Wrong, and i’d have to suspect it was on purpose, but, can’t prove what his intentions were
Have not seen any on the liberal left in Congress condemn his actions so far, especially his fellow Squad members. They seem to think Bowman is just a innocent victim!
The simplest things seem to have flummoxed
some allegedly astute NY politicians.
The talking point from white progressives is that the black congressman is so stupid that no one can expect him to understand how a fire alarm works. He couldn’t understand the sign! Not racist at all
And a former schoolteacher wouldn't know what a fire alarm is.
Time to censor him.
Time to censor him
He commited a crime. He'd be arrested if he were a Republican.,
Allegedly being the key word.
I just wonder how useful they can be in Congress when garbage disposals, fire alarms, and locked doors can flummox them so easily.
Oh, like the hundreds of Jan.6 people who were arrested, many still imprisoned, and still haven't been given their right to due process even though many of them never even entered the US Capitol building?
Everyone with even a low level of intelligence knows there are two different kinds of justice in Biden's and Garland's Department of INjustice.
I agree. That was a reckless thing to do.
AOC even defended him by claiming that he panicked when he couldn't figure out how to get out of that vestibule and activated the (clearly marked) fire alarm instead of simply turning the door knob.
Probably because that is what she would do.
As the jokes and memes about her say, AOC studied for her Covid test and still failed. Seems like a common thread for the rest of her Marxist Squad buddies.
d him by claiming that he panicked when he couldn't figure out how to get out of that vestibule
He's been in the building three years....
They lie without even the slightest concern about plausibility.
She would cry some crocodile tears and then say Republicans locked her in the vestibule because they want to date her or something equally as dumb. Maybe how locks are racist.
Democrats are going to fall back on the old incompetent but not criminal defense. Hat tip to Hillary. Bowman is either illiterate or Bowman really thinks door buttons are labeled FIRE. And door buttons are always positioned too high for handicap access. And those door openers always use pull levers instead of push buttons. And Bowman is so helpless that he cannot use the crash bars plainly visible on the doors. We've always suspected that New York is a completely alien environment. So, it's understandable that Bowman cannot function out in the real world.
Democrats have a history of rigging votes. That's how Biden made it to the White House, after all. The dirty politics of Biden and Bowman are the same.
The only problem with this is that Bowman was a school principal for 12 years. I don't know any school principal (or even 2nd grader) who doesn't know how to activate a red fire alarm box that is clearly marked "FIRE ALARM". They even have simple directions. Some are break glass, push button. Others are pull down lever.
According to one discussion I watched this weekend, the penalty for students at Bowman's school for falsely activating a fire alarm was expulsion, because it's a criminal offense. Hmmm.
Yep, definitely deliberately done.