On Tuesday, four police officers who were on the scene during the mayonnaise-scented insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 delivered emotional testimony about the physical and verbal abuse they endured from the MAGA mob who couldn’t accept that the grand wizard of white supremacy had lost the presidential election.
In front of a House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, the officers—two members of the Capitol Police—Officer Harry Dunn and Sgt. Aquilino Gonell—along with two members of D.C.’s police force: Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges—destroyed the myth that the MAGA maniacs who attempted to overthrow the government were peaceful and pleasant.
New video was introduced that showed just how close Officer Fanone “came to possibly being killed by insurrectionists as he pleaded for his life on Jan. 6,” the Washington Post reports.
From the Post:
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced video that snipped together how Fanone entered the Capitol West Front tunnel in an effort to protect the Capitol before being dragged out and beaten by insurrectionists.
Fanone recalled entering the crypt on the Capitol’s first floor with his partner Jimmy Albright and seeing throngs of police officers exhausted from defending the door leading to the building’s West Front balcony where Joe Biden would be inaugurated as president weeks later. In an effort to relieve tired police, Fanone made his way to the front and is seen from another officer’s camera pushing all of his weight against the door frame to prevent insurrectionists from entering.
He tried to plea with the protesters, telling them that the door needs to stay closed to protect injured officers, which he says “pissed them off.”
“That’s when the surge that you watched in some of the video began and you had a large group at the mouth of that tunnel entrance trying to push their way through the officers who were trying to defend it,” Fanone said. “I believe had they done so or had they accomplished that, they would have trampled us to death. Most certainly you would have had police officers killed.”
Fanone, who rightfully called the insurrectionists “terrorists,” recalled them lunging at him as he lay on the ground. Fanone said they were trying to get his gun and even heard someone shout, “kill him with his own gun.”
The video shows one man yelling “I’ve got one” referring to Fanone. In a last ditch appeal to the terrorists’ humanity, Fanone told them, “I have kids.”
A more sympathetic group of terrorists handed Fanone off to police.
“I need a medic. We need EMTs now,” an officer shouts.
“Mike, stay in there buddy,” an officer tells Fanone who believes, based on his body camera footage, that he was unconscious for four minutes. He also suffered a “minor heart attack and a concussion from being beaten and Tased by rioters,” the Post reports.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn recalled his efforts to try and prevent the MAGA rioters from entering the Capitol. The rioters told Dunn that they were there to stop the steal since nobody voted for Joe Biden. Dunn informed them that he voted for Biden.
“Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?” The crowd snarled racial slurs in response. “You hear that, guys, this nigger voted for Joe Biden!” one woman shouted. “Fucking nigger!” the crowd screamed, the Daily Beast reports. Dunn noted that he had never been called a nigger while wearing a Capitol Police uniform. That ended on Jan. 6.
Watch as Dunn fights back tears as he recounts what happened that day and then, tell me more about Blue Lives Mattering...