Congressman Jamaal Bowman, an Empire State liberal, has been charged with one misdemeanor count by prosecutors at the nation’s capital after he pulled an office building fire alarm during a key House vote last month. The Democrat has denied that his doing so was intentional or that he intended to disrupt congressional proceedings. 

Mr. Bowman triggered the alarm on September 30 as the House was debating an 11th-hour short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, in an effort to avoid a government shutdown. At the time the alarm was pulled, Democrats were frantically urging House Republicans to recess so that members could have time to read the bill. 

Mr. Bowman has said that he pulled the alarm only because he was attempting to exit the Cannon House Office Building in order to get to the floor of the Capitol building for the continuing resolution vote. The Cannon building, which is undergoing major renovations, has several doors that are blocked off and only open by pressing emergency buttons. Mr. Bowman has said that he accidentally triggered the alarm because he thought that was the emergency door release. 

Yet after a month-long investigation by the United States Capitol Police, law enforcement decided to charge the congressman with one misdemeanor count of falsely pulling a fire alarm. Mr. Bowman must report to the Capitol Police office to be booked and fingerprinted. The attorney general for the District of Columbia will prosecute the case, and if he is found guilty, he will face up to six months in prison and as much as a $1,000 fine. 

Mr. Bowman’s insistence that he was rushing to the floor was backed up by the Capitol police investigation. “Security camera footage from Stairwell No. 3 of the Cannon Office Building then shows the defendant jogging down the staircase from the second floor to the first floor where he exits a door at the bottom of the stairs,” an affidavit in support of the arrest warrant states. “Other security camera footage then shows the defendant walking at a normal pace out of the New Jersey Ave., SE door exit of the Cannon House Office Building, where other people were also exiting.”

The congressman, though, failed to inform authorities about his supposed unintentional pulling of the alarm. “At approximately 1208 hours, the defendant enters the United States Capitol Building and, while showing his credentials, he walks past two USCP officers who are posted at the inside entrance, staffing the metal detector,” the affidavit states.  

“He presses the elevator button and waits approximately 10 seconds for the elevator door to open. During the 10 seconds that the defendant was waiting for the elevator, he is standing within feet of one of the United States Capitol Police Officers and does not appear to say anything to the officer.”

The congressman did quickly tell reporters that his actions were unintentional. Shortly after the continuing resolution vote, Mr. Bowman told members of the press, “I was trying to get to a door. I thought the alarm would open the door, and I pulled the fire alarm to open the door by accident.”

“I was just trying to get to my vote and the door that’s usually open wasn’t open, it was closed,” he added. 

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.