Reports that first responders to the Sept 16 Navy Yard shooting had inoperable radios is "inexcusable," House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul told CNN.
"This long after 9/11, the idea that we're not all interoperable is really inexcusable," McCaul said Monday on "
The Lead with Jake Tapper." The Texas Republican said his committee will hold a hearing into why some first responders had to use their personal phones to talk to each other during the shooting rampage that left 12 Navy Yard employees dead.
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Earlier Monday, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., sent a letter to the leaders of the Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration to look into the matter,
The Hill reports.
McCaul said he also is concerned over reports that a SWAT team eating breakfast nearby the shooting was told to stand down rather than render aid.
"I just happened to bump into one of these SWAT team members outside the classified briefing room in the Capitol, and he told me about how – and I heard this firsthand – his commanding SWAT team officer told them to stand down," McCaul told Tapper.
"That's obviously a great concern when you have a SWAT team that close by that could respond to the situation."
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