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       Ashan M. Benedict, who served since the spring of 2021 as the second-highest ranking uniformed officer in the D.C. police department, has left the force for a position with the U.S. Capitol Police, officials with both agencies said Friday.

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       At his new job, Benedict, 52, who had been the city’s executive assistant police chief, said he will oversee protective and intelligence operations, including dignitary protection and gathering information on threats to the U.S. Capitol complex and to members of Congress.

       “It’s going to be a pretty critical election cycle this next year,” Benedict said in an interview Friday. His new boss, Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, said in a statement: “He comes to us with many years of law enforcement leadership experience.”

       Manger said this year that he wanted to increase the number of field offices around the country to investigate threats to lawmakers. Capitol Police said the number of possible such threats that were investigated jumped from about 4,000 in 2017 to more than 9,600 in 2021, then declined in 2022. Rioters overran the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.

       Bowser names Ashan Benedict interim D.C. police chief

       Former D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III hired Benedict in April 2021 after Benedict had served for 28 years in the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and headed its D.C. field office.

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       Benedict served as interim police chief from May to July, after Contee retired to take a job with the FBI and before Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) named Pamela A. Smith acting chief. The D.C. Council unanimously confirmed Smith as the permanent chief Tuesday.

       In a statement, Smith said Benedict “provided dedicated leadership and helped navigate the agency through a variety of challenges.” That included a surge in violent crime as the force shrank in numbers.

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       Smith has appointed Jeffery Carroll, who had overseen internal affairs, to replace Benedict as the executive assistant chief. Before that, Carroll headed the police department’s homeland security bureau, putting him in charge of high-profile incidents that included the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and two presidential inaugurations.

       Benedict said he had been thinking about leaving D.C. police for several months but wanted to wait until after Smith had been confirmed. He said he had not been seeking a job with the Capitol Police but accepted an offer after several meetings with Manger, who he said told him he wanted to expand his leadership team.

       The D.C. police department’s executive assistant chief serves largely in the background, running the day-to-day operations, and outranks the eight other assistant chiefs. Benedict was a presence at crime scenes across the city and, when the chief was not available, he often stepped in to answer questions from the media at breaking news events. His profile grew during his brief stint as interim police chief.

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       After Contee departed, Benedict made it clear he did not want the chief’s job permanently, and he helped Smith, a career member of the U.S. Park Police who had only been on the D.C. force 14 months, transition into her new role.

       Benedict said the rise in violence over the past two years in D.C. pains him, but he said he will not miss leaving his family to drive to overnight shooting scenes.

       His job with the Capitol Police, he said, is “a different mission.”

       Manger said this year that several recent high-profile attacks on federal lawmakers required the Capitol Police to “transform into a more protective agency” and not limited to D.C.

       In May, authorities said a man with a baseball bat attacked staff members at a congressman’s office in Fairfax City, Va. In October 2022, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was violently assaulted by a man with a hammer in a break-in at their San Francisco home. And in 2017, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot and seriously wounded at a baseball practice with Republican members of Congress at a park in Alexandria, Va.

       Benedict’s last working day with D.C. police was Thursday. He said he will take some time off, using leftover vacation time and personal leave, and will start with Capitol Police in early December.

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