According to Steve Livengood, the chief tour guide of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, the Capitol Police force was notorious for hiring unqualified relatives and friends of Congressmen as favors, and these men would frequently be drunk whilst on patrol.[1] Livengood believes the legend began when a security guard who was lying down in a drunken stupor was licked by one of the Capitol building's cats and mistakenly assumed it to be a giant cat. Livengood states that upon reporting the incident to his superior, the guard would have been sent home to recover, and "eventually the other guards found out that they could get a day off if they saw the demon cat".[3]