‘Constant Trauma,’ Racial Slurs, and Gaslighting: Capitol Police Testify on the Jan. 6 Insurrection and Its Aftermath

[aubiefifty 16,807]

‘Constant Trauma,’ Racial Slurs, and Gaslighting: Capitol Police Testify on the Jan. 6 Insurrection and Its Aftermath

 

“That day continues to be a constant trauma for us, literally every day,” said Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, from left, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn are sworn in before the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP)

AP

On the first day of the House select committee investigation into the January 6th insurrection, officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department who responded that day gave harrowing testimony about the abuse they endured at the hands of an angry mob of Trump supporters.

“That day continues to be a constant trauma for us, literally every day,” Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who suffered severe injuries and has been on leave for most of the months following the insurrection, told the committee on Tuesday.

D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges recalled a tense moment when an insurrectionist told him, “You will die on your knees.”

Hodges also testified to his bewilderment at seeing insurrectionists carrying flags with symbols indicating support of police officers. “My perpetual confusion, I saw the thin blue line flag, a symbol of support for law enforcement more than once being carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands and continued to assault us,” Hodges said.

Another witness, Officer Harry Dunn with the Capitol Police, testified that rioters called him a n***** after he told them he voted for Biden. “I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance, I responded: ‘Well I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?'” Dunn said.

He then said that a woman “in a pink MAGA shirt” yelled back, “You hear that guys? This n***** voted for Joe Biden.”

“No one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn said.

Dunn testified that officers were not forewarned by leadership about the levels of violence that would be present that day. “We were expecting civil disobedience as we do at the Capitol. At least that was what was relayed to us,” Dunn said, adding that they were told to expect “a couple arrests, name-calling, unfriendly people.”

“But nowhere near the level of violence or even close to it that we experienced,” he said.

Dunn went on to explain that he only heard about the violent plans through a friend who had texted him about it. “When I received the text message, it made the hairs on my neck rise, since our chain of command had not told us to prepare for these levels of violence,” Dunn told the committee.

Nine Democrats and two Republicans sit on the select committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s appointments to the committee, Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, both of whom have continued to endorse Trump’s lie that the election was stolen and have opposed a full investigation of the Capitol attack. The representatives “made statements and took actions that just made it ridiculous to put them on such a committee seeking the truth,” Pelosi said when justifying her decision.

D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who has been an outspoken critic of Republican politicians attempting to minimize the attack, was the fourth witness to appear at Tuesday’s hearing. Fanone suffered multiple injuries that day at the hands of the insurrectionists, including a heart attack and traumatic brain injury. Rioters dragged him into the crowd, stole a munition off his body, and beat him with “their fists and hard metal objects” while also attacking him with a Taser. It was only when he yelled that he had children, he said, that the beatings stopped and other police officers managed to drag him out of the mob.

“I was electrocuted again and again and again,” he said. “I’m sure I was screaming, but I don’t think I could even hear my own voice.”

But many Republicans are trying to deny the truth and painting the riots as a peaceful protest. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) has said that the rioters were “people that love this country.” And Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) described the rioters’ behavior at the Capitol as a “normal tourist visit.” The officers’ testimony, however, proves those Republicans are very clearly wrong.

“I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them, and too many in this room … are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or hell actually wasn’t that bad,” Fanone said, pounding his fist on the table. “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

Fanone continued, “Nothing, truly nothing, has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day. And in doing so, betray their oath of office.”

Sergeant Gonnell also criticized Republicans, saying they have tried “to whitewash the facts into something other than what they unmistakably reveal: an attack on our democracy by violent domestic extremists,” he said. What law enforcement officers are seeking, however, is “accountability and justice.”

Throughout his testimony, Officer Hodges of the D.C. police referred to the insurrection as an act of terrorism and the people who carried it out “terrorists.” Asked why he chose those words by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Hodges told the committee he had come prepared for the question. He then read, verbatim, the legal definitions of domestic terrorism from the U.S. code.

Finally, near the end of the hearing, Hodges spoke directly to the 11 members of the select committee. He and his colleagues had done their jobs on January 6th to great physical and mental harm. But it was now time, he said, for members of Congress to hold accountable those in power who might have aided or enabled the insurrection. “I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role” in this “terrorist attack,” he said.

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A Capitol Police Officer Slammed His Fist on the Table While Addressing January 6-Denying Congressmen

Jack Holmes

Tue, July 27, 2021, 11:07 AM

Photo credit: CHIP SOMODEVILLA - Getty Images

Every new video from the Capitol attack on January 6 offers new horrors. The footage that played on Tuesday to kick off the first hearing of the House commission tasked with investigating those events was no exception. There were clips that showed the savagery of the hand-to-hand combat, but there were also audio clips of officers frantically signaling over their radios how perilous the situation had become. And there were also clips from the rioters' radio channels on Zello that made a strong case that for some section of the crowd, there was nothing spontaneous about what happened. "Hey brother, we're boots on the ground here, we're moving on the Capitol now," one suspect said. "OK guys," said another later on, "apparently the tip of the spear has entered the Capitol Building." Towards the end of the video, there were some explicit threats of violence against public officials, and not just Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. "They've got the gallows set up outside the Capitol Building," someone said over Zello. "It's time to start ******* using them."

And then the officers testified. One by one, four members of the Capitol Police who fought to defend the building, and the members of Congress in the process of certifying the election results inside, told their stories from that day. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell described the scene as a "medieval battle" in which they were besieged by people yelling, "Trump sent us." He recalled thinking that this is how he was going to die. When he finally returned home at the end of the day, he pushed his wife away when she tried to hug him because his uniform was covered in toxic chemicals sprayed by his assailants. Those were activated on his skin when he took a shower, and he barely slept that night.

Then there was Officer Michael Fanone, who said he suffered a concussion and a heart attack that day. Later, he'd be diagnosed with PTSD. He described hearing members of the crowd calling for him to be murdered with his own gun. He was electrocuted again and again with his own taser. He appealed to his assailants by yelling, over and over, that he had children. And then he expressed absolute disgust at the idea the very members of Congress he'd risked his life to protect were now downplaying or outright denying what happened that day. He did so with a slam of his fist on the table.

The abject cowardice and complicity of nearly the entire Republican caucus outside Liz Cheney and a few others is almost difficult to comprehend. These officers fought and nearly died to protect them and, after a few days and weeks of acknowledging what had just happened in reality, have now shifted towards downplaying, denying, or attempting to scramble up the full accounting of what happened that day. All because they think it will pay political dividends somehow. All because they cannot imagine a world where they are not completely beholden to a deranged narcissist—the same one who fueled this national disgrace—for their continuing power and influence.

For unlimited access to Esquire's political coverage, including an exclusive weekly newsletter from Charles P. Pierce, you can join Esquire Select here.

Next was Officer Daniel Hodges, who offered an almost literary narrative of events. Maybe the adrenaline rushing through him in the moment caused him to record such specific, visceral memories of the sights and smells to which he was subjected. He spoke of being attacked by people waving Thin Blue Line police flags, a stunning showcase of what the Blue Lives Matter crowd is really about. He spoke with a haunting elegance about nearly being crushed to death against a Capitol door. But the biggest revelation from his testimony was his account of how some men in military gear with radios approached his colleague before things even kicked off:

"Is this all the manpower you have?" the man asked. "Do you really think you're going to be able to stop all these people?"

Another data point to suggest that some in the crowd had a very clear idea of how things would play out.

And finally, there was Officer Harry Dunn:

For years now, we've been subjected to these altogether silly discussions of whether there's a racial dimension to the most enthusiastic quarters of Donald Trump's support, and of the far-right in general. It was just a coincidence that nearly everyone who showed up to the rallies had a certain complexion, and that a similar theme played out on January 6, where people showed up with Trump flags and Gadsden flags and Thin Blue Line flags and, of course, American flags. But the vision of that America in this group was not one that included Officer Harry Dunn, or at least not one in which Dunn had the full rights of citizenship and thus ought to have as much say in who wields power in this polity as any one member of the crowd. It's a reminder that at the root of things, all this is not about a stolen election. The feeling among Trump's most devoted supporters is that the country was stolen—hence the "SAVE AMERICA" tour—and the whole universe of election conspiracies is just window dressing. Joe Biden cannot be the president, therefore he was elected illegitimately, and here's some slapdick evidence for that while we pursue our actual aim: keeping hold of power by force.

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How Many Republicans Does It Take to Tell a Crime From a Coup?

 

Max Burns

Tue, July 27, 2021, 2:36 PM

 

 

 

REUTERS

The clouds of teargas hadn’t even cleared the battle-scarred hallways of the United States Capitol Complex before Republicans, led by House Minority “Leader” Kevin McCarthy, set about writing an alternate history of the insurrection their president and party had gleefully incited.

An organized conservative disinformation campaign turned violent rioters into peaceful “tourists.” Republican lawmakers refused to even speak to D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone and other officers seriously wounded by the Trumpist mob. McCarthy, in an effort to delay and derail any government effort to uncover the truth, argued that any Jan. 6 Commission should also investigate last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Even the folks at Fox News slammed that half-baked idea.

On Tuesday, the bipartisan Jan. 6 Select Committee impaneled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi began their critical fact-finding after rejecting the dead weight of McCarthy’s self-selected obstructionists. For Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans on the commission, McCarthy’s BLM comparison was simply too much to bear.

‘This Is How I’m Going to Die’: Capitol Cops Wipe Away Tears at Jan 6. Hearing

 

“Some have concocted a counter-narrative to discredit this process on the grounds that we didn’t launch a similar investigation into the urban riots and looting last summer,” Kinzinger said during an emotional opening statement. “There is a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime—even grave crimes—and a coup.”

Kinzinger’s moral clarity will disappoint his Republican colleagues, many of whom now see tying protests and riots in Portland and other cities to the Capitol insurrection as their last means of minimizing their own complicity in a direct attack on American government.

When far-right lawmakers like McCarthy, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz and others compare January 6 to “BLM riots,” they’re hoping to excite two thoughts in their listeners’ minds: first that these two events are equivalent and then that Democrats didn’t think it was a national emergency when ‘their side’ did it.

No one denies that the United States faced widespread and often deeply troubling protests during the summer of 2020. Between May and August, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project recorded over 10,500 distinct demonstrations touching nearly every major community in America. But what is critical to add—and what Republicans hope to obscure by comparing these protests to the Capitol riot—is that fully 93% of last summer’s demonstrations were peaceful acts of protected speech. The January 6 insurrection was decidedly not.

Faced with largely peaceful protests, the GOP fear machine jumped into overdrive. Borrowing from left-wing organizer and conservative bogeyman Saul Alinsky, Republicans quickly publicized individual, isolated instances of violence as being representative of the entire Black Lives Matter movement. It was under that collective delusion that Trump encouraged a massively expensive, all-out police response that briefly turned Washington, D.C. into Fallujah.

The Dangerous Mirror Games of the Right's Alinksy Wannabes

This polarize-and-publicize approach helped solidify the image of BLM as violent and anti-American in conservative minds, even as it divorced Republicans from reality. In one particularly ridiculous instance, the Trump administration used a single instance of looting in Manhattan to declare all of New York City an “anarchist jurisdiction.”

The American people would need to drop all sense of nuance, context and proportion to believe that myth — and that’s exactly what the GOP is hoping will happen.

Among the Republicans whining that the Jan, 6 rioters have been treated unfairly is Senator Rand Paul, who joined Gohmert’s unhinged calls for the Capitol insurrectionists to be released from jail. Paul, who has repeatedly and incorrectly claimed the Capitol mob was “non-violent,” is also a vocal supporter of McCarthy’s ‘BLM Commission’ publicity stunt.

Republicans are no strangers to the power of false equivalencies, but their latest effort to avoid accountability finally pushed Kinzinger to an emotional breaking point. Kinzinger has seen the difference between protest and insurrection up close.

“I was called on to serve during the summer riots as an Air National Guardsman. I condemned those riots and the destruction of property that resulted,” Kinzinger said. “But not once did I ever feel that the future of self-government was threatened like I did on January 6th.”

When Kinzinger condemns opportunistic GOP attempts to compare BLM to the violent January 6 insurrectionists who shattered U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell’s foot with a stolen speaker, he is also hoping to head off a wave of performative “BLM Commissions” that Republican leaders hope to establish in red state legislatures across the country. Imagine a Jan. 6 Commission where every member is Jim Jordan. That’s a good idea of the fireworks Republicans would hope to generate from an all-GOP “investigation” into Black Americans’ political activism.

This Clown Car of Kooks Is Crashing Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Commission

The GOP’s desperate attempt to change the subject has shifted wildly before finally settling on BLM as a reliable villain. Back in May, Republicans wanted to launch a similar “investigation” into Antifa’s role in the Capitol attack (it had none). Then de facto GOP spokesman Tucker Carlson accused the FBI of masterminding the attack. Turning their fire on Black Americans may be all Republicans have left after facing a stinging round of denunciations from the Capitol police officers they have publicly abandoned.

Sergeant Gonell called the January 6 insurrection a “treasonous act,” and expressed frustration that Republican lawmakers lined up to support officers when they were putting down BLM protests in Washington, D.C. last summer, but disappeared when the perpetrators of violence were fellow Republicans. “It was not Antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI,” he said of the Capitol insurrectionists. “All of them were saying ‘Trump sent us!’”

Kinzinger and the only other Republican on the commission, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, both seem acutely aware that the GOP’s war on reality is already causing a serious corrosive effect on our institutions of self-government. Cheney, no friend of the Black Lives Matter movement, nevertheless refused to join McCarthy and the Trumpists in their efforts to turn this investigation into yet another means to criminalize Black Americans.

Kinzinger and Cheney have demonstrated admirable patriotism in not only seeking the truth about the January 6 insurrection but in rejecting the multiple GOP attempts to dodge blame by smearing Black Lives Matter and leftist organizations. Their commitment to the truth is reassuring, but Congress will need more than Cheney and Kinzinger if it intends to prevent the GOP from wreaking havoc on the very idea of facts and truth.

[creed 1,640]

The people who rushed the capital and assaulted the capital police are criminals and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

P.S. I willing to bet there is at least one poster on the forum who knows a capital rioter or has a friend that knows one of the rioters and is actively harboring the fool. 

[aubiefifty 16,807]

16 hours ago, creed said:

The people who rushed the capital and assaulted the capital police are criminals and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

P.S. I willing to bet there is at least one poster on the forum who knows a capital rioter or has a friend that knows one of the rioters and is actively harboring the fool. 

my personal opinion is there are a couple of elected officials on the wrong side of this and the righties are protecting them.

[aubiefifty 16,807]

The first January 6 committee hearing was a searing indictment of the GOP's lies about the fatal Capitol attack

 

 

The first hearing held by the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection exemplified why Republicans have pushed so hard against a probe into the Capitol attack.

The hearing was a disaster for Republicans. It was an emotionally raw indictment of former President Donald Trump and his GOP defenders.

The four police officers who were called to testify on their experiences defending the Capitol repeatedly slammed GOP efforts to whitewash the insurrection. They called out Republicans who portray themselves as pro-law enforcement but won't fully acknowledge the violence officers were subjected to on January 6. And they explicitly blamed the insurrection on Trump at a time when the GOP continues to defer to the twice-impeached president like the party's Supreme Leader.

"The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful," DC Police Officer Michael Fanone said, slamming his fist on the table as he excoriated Republicans who've downplayed the insurrection. "Nothing, truly nothing, has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day. And in doing so, betray their oath of office."

'Terrorists'

Video footage shown by lawmakers during the hearing showed in gruesome detail the brutal violence officers faced at the hands of the pro-Trump mob on January 6. The officers were mercilessly beaten, their weapons were taken from them, and the rioters pelted them with racial slurs - including the n-word - as they feared for their lives.

One such clip showed DC Police Officer Daniel Hodges screaming as he was crushed by a door.

When asked about Republicans attempting to downplay the riot by describing the insurrections as "tourists," Hodges said, "Well, if that's what American tourists are like, I can see why foreign countries don't like American tourists."

Hodges, who repeatedly referred to the insurrectionists as "terrorists," later on said to the panel, "I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this, if anyone in power coordinated or aided and abetted or tried to downplay, tried to prevent the investigation of this terrorist attack. Because we can't do it."

US Capitol Police Officer Harry A. Dunn, who recounted the racist abuse he faced from the pro-Trump mob, toward the end of the hearing remarked at the fact that the only two Republicans on the committee were being lauded as courageous for telling the truth about the insurrection as the rest of their party vies to rewrite history.

"Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is," Dunn said.

Dunn likened the January 6 insurrection to a murder committed by a hired hitman.

"If a hitman is hired, and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to the jail. But not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired him does," Dunn said. "There was an attack carried out on January 6th and a hitman sent them."

Earlier in his testimony, Dunn said that when he confronted the rioters and told them to leave the Capitol they yelled in response, "'President Trump invited us here. We're here to stop the steal.'" Shortly thereafter, Dunn said he faced a "torrent of racial epithets."

'It was an attempted coup'

US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was beaten with a flagpole during the insurrection, did not hold back when asked to react to the fact that Trump described the violent mob he unleashed on the Capitol as a "loving crowd."

"It's upsetting," Gonell said of Trump's words. "It's a pathetic excuse for his behavior, for something that he himself helped to create, this monstrosity."

"To me, it's insulting, it's demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt. And what he was doing instead of sending the military, instead of sending the support, or telling his people, his supporters to stop this nonsense, he egged them to continue fighting," Gonell, who like many others became emotional during the hearing, said of Trump.

Trump gave a lie-filled speech near the White House before the riot began, repeating false claims about the election results and urging his supporters to march on the Capitol. As the violence unfolded, Trump for hours did nothing to quell the unrest. He eventually told his supporters to go home, but did so while calling the insurrectionists "very special" as he continued to falsely assert that the election was stolen.

"It was an attempted coup happening at the Capitol that day. If it was another country, the US would've sent help," Gonell said.

Republicans are trying to rewrite history

 

An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of President Donald Trump gather in front of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC on January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

 

Outside of the hearing, Republicans continued to push lies about the insurrection - with GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York falsely stating that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "bears responsibility."

GOP leaders have dismissed the inquiry as a partisan sham given most of the panel's members are Democrats, though it was Senate Republicans who blocked the formation of an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection.

Last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy put forward the names of five House Republicans to sit on the committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two - Trump loyalists Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio - and called for McCarthy to offer alternatives. Both Banks and Jordan objected to the certification of President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory on January 6, effectively amplifying Trump's lies about the election result that sparked the insurrection in the first place.

McCarthy announced that none of his picks would participate, stating that the GOP would move forward with its own inquiry.

But the vast majority of Republicans have repeatedly made it clear they're not interested in getting to the bottom of what happened on January 6. Merely participating in such an effort could put them at odds with Trump and some of the most powerful forces in their party.

[homersapien 11,388]

It was compelling testimony.

Too bad Republican leadership were all too busy to listen to it.

[DKW 86 7,428]

One fact we need to nail down. Picked this one because there was no pay wall nor subscription needed. 

https://www.fox23.com/news/trending/dc-medical-examiner-confirms-causes-death-4-who-died-jan-6-capitol-riot/MZMP3MS2JZGTHKAGBM2YPCRG5I/

The cause and manner of death for Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick remain pending. Two men have been charged with spraying Sicknick with a chemical spray, but no charges have been brought for causing his death.

Per Dr. Francisco Diaz’s official determinations:

• Ashli Babbitt, 35, died from a gunshot wound to her left shoulder

• Roseanne Boyland, 34, died of acute amphetamine intoxication

• Kevin Greeson, 55, died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

• Benjamin Phillips, 50, died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

Sicknick died of an unrelated illness that coincided with the day after the riot. His family has cleared this up ad infinitum. All those that died that day were protestors. Capital Hill Police were wounded/hurt that day no doubt, and that was totally uncalled for. But the "deaths' were caused by a gunshot from a policeman ,and the crowd crushing two others, and one drug overdose.

Babbitt, a U.S. Air Force veteran from Southern California, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while she climbed through a broken window on a door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, The New York Times reported.

Meanwhile, video reviewed by the Times showed Boyland among a throng of protesters attempting to fight through a police line. The Kennesaw, Georgia, resident appeared in the video to be crushed by fellow rioters, but the medical examiner’s ruling contradicts that theory.

Greeson, of Athens, Alabama, was talking on the phone with his wife in a crowd of Trump loyalists on the Capitol’s west side, when he suffered an apparent heart attack and fell to the sidewalk, the Times reported. His wife confirmed Greeson suffered from high blood pressure.

Meanwhile, the details surrounding Phillips’ death were scarce immediately following the riot, although fellow Trump supporters who traveled throughout the city with him told the Times that he died of a stroke before the entourage left to return home to Pennsylvania.

Edited July 28, 2021 by DKW 86

[Mims44 1,872]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

It was compelling testimony.

Too bad Republican leadership were all too busy to listen to it.

I have... failed to read up on this much  

Is this to decide blame for certain elected officials at the time? The terrorists are already being imprisoned when found right?

[CoffeeTiger 5,133]

Police Officer Harry Dunn testified:

That prompted a torrent of racial epithets. One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled: 'Did you hear that, guys? This n----- voted for Joe Biden.' Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in screaming, 'Booo, f------ n-----.'

"No one had ever, ever called me a n----- while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer," Dunn continued, adding that after the riot he heard from other Black officers who faced racial abuse from the mob. "One officer told me he had never, in his 40 years of life, had been called a n----- to his face, and that streak ended on January 6th. Yet another Black officer later told me he had been confronted by insurrectionists in the Capitol who told him to 'put your gun down, and we'll show you what kind of n----- you really are.'"

[SaltyTiger 7,816]

14 minutes ago, Mims44 said:

I have... failed to read up on this much  

Is this to decide blame for certain elected officials at the time? The terrorists are already being imprisoned when found right?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-arrests-latest-2021-07-27/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-arrests-latest-2021-07-27/

[homersapien 11,388]

3 hours ago, Mims44 said:

I have... failed to read up on this much  

Is this to decide blame for certain elected officials at the time? The terrorists are already being imprisoned when found right?

And the 9/11 attackers were already dead prior to the 9/11 commission......right? 

[Mims44 1,872]

54 minutes ago, homersapien said:

And the 9/11 attackers were already dead prior to the 9/11 commission......right? 

Thanks, you cleared that up very well.

[Mims44 1,872]

12 minutes ago, Mims44 said:

Thanks, you cleared that up very well.

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

And the 9/11 attackers were already dead prior to the 9/11 commission......right? 

No Homer, don't trophy that lmao. I was being sarcastic.

The link Salty put up also seemed to show many of those people had already been tried and found guilty and sentenced. So my thought was that this hearing was to be used to establish guilt for those who incited it. maybe? Again, I don't know... and you did not clear that up for me  

[homersapien 11,388]

On 7/28/2021 at 5:37 PM, Mims44 said:

 

No Homer, don't trophy that lmao. I was being sarcastic.

The link Salty put up also seemed to show many of those people had already been tried and found guilty and sentenced. So my thought was that this hearing was to be used to establish guilt for those who incited it. maybe? Again, I don't know... and you did not clear that up for me  

And my point is this investigation - like the 9/11 commission - is to look into all aspects of what happened, including people who planned for or incited it.

My understanding is there were congressmen who helped the rioters by providing maps or directions (for example).  Not to mention what Trump was doing for several hours while this was going on.  Several congressmen talked to him.  What were they discussing?

The purpose of this investigation was obvious to me. I fail to see how the fact some of the perpetrators have been arrested is relevant to the investigation.

Of course, the Democrats tried to instigate a fully bi-partisan investigation (exactly like the 9/11 commission) but the Trump Republicans squelched it.

Does that help?

Edited August 1, 2021 by homersapien

[AUFAN78 3,911]

On 7/27/2021 at 5:59 PM, creed said:

The people who rushed the capital and assaulted the capital police are criminals and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

P.S. I willing to bet there is at least one poster on the forum who knows a capital rioter or has a friend that knows one of the rioters and is actively harboring the fool. 

According to DC police there were between 30K and 80K in attendance. 56 are currently detained with most violent of crimes. Odds not on your side unless you are admitting something?  

[creed 1,640]

13 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

According to DC police there were between 30K and 80K in attendance. 56 are currently detained with most violent of crimes. Odds not on your side unless you are admitting something?  

That’s good to know and makes me feel better about my Alabama and Georgia brethren knowing they did not heed the calling of a loser. 😆

[homersapien 11,388]

Speaking of gaslighting:

 

How Ashli Babbitt went from Capitol rioter to Trump-embraced ‘martyr’

Paul Schwartzman

and 

Josh Dawsey

 

Her phone rang on that day in early July, nearly six months after a police officer’s bullet killed her daughter as she and a mob of rioters seeking to overturn the election stormed a barricaded door deep inside the U.S. Capitol.

Micki Witthoeft answered the call and listened as former president Donald Trump expressed condolences over Ashli Babbitt’s violent death and acknowledged, she said, that her daughter had died Jan. 6 trying to salvage his lost presidency.

Witthoeft took the opportunity during the 30-minute call to ask Trump for help getting information about Babbitt’s death and to fight for those still imprisoned because of the riot.

After their call, the circumstances of Babbitt’s death — once a focus of right-wing extremists and white supremacists — became a talking point for the nation’s most dominant Republican.

“Who shot Ashli Babbitt?” Trump asked over and over in the ensuing days, suggesting that the 35-year-old Air Force veteran was the victim of an overzealous Capitol Police officer whose identity was being covered up.

“Every time he talks about her, he says her name,” Witthoeft said in a phone interview. “He could say ‘Her’ or ‘She’ or whatever. But he says ‘Ashli Babbitt.’ He is sure to mention her name repeatedly. I appreciate that. It’s millions more people I can reach.”

In the months since Jan. 6, Trump and his allies have waged a fevered campaign to rewrite the narrative of one of the darkest days in the nation’s history, when a mob attacked the Capitol, threatening to kill Vice President Mike Pence and using baseball bats and flagpoles to beat police officers as they hunted for lawmakers, many of whom hid behind locked doors, fearing for their lives.

Yet, instead of marauders invading the Capitol, Trump and his acolytes describe a largely peaceful crowd of protesters unfairly maligned and persecuted by prosecutors, Democrats and mainstream journalists.

At the center of their revisionism is Babbitt, their martyr, whose fatal attempt to leap through a door that led to the House chamber — captured in graphic detail on video — they describe as a heroic act of patriotism.

“An innocent, wonderful, incredible woman, a military woman,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News. At a Florida rally July 4, he called her shooting “a terrible thing” and said “there was no reason for it.”

Just before she was shot, Babbitt was among a group of rioters bashing in the glass-paneled doors that led to the Speaker’s Lobby, down the hall from the House chamber, where lawmakers were being evacuated.

“There’s a gun! There’s a gun!” someone shouted when an officer, on the other side of the doors, aimed his weapon in the direction of the mob.

Despite the warning, someone appeared to hoist Babbitt up so she could step through an opening in the door created after its glass panels were shattered. A bullet struck her and she fell back on the floor.

Prosecutors determined it was reasonable for the officer to believe he was firing in self-defense or to protect members evacuating the House chamber.

With the 2022 midterm elections looming, Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, are challenging Trump’s narrative about Jan. 6. At a House select committee hearing Tuesday, four police officers catalogued the emotional and physical abuse they suffered defending the Capitol and how betrayed they feel by Republican lawmakers.

“I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room,” D.C. police officer Michael Fanone told the committee. “But too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

Trump has complained to aides that his supporters were treated far worse than Black Lives Matter protesters charged last summer, and that the Justice Department and others want to use prosecutions of Jan. 6 crimes to damage him.

The former president, according to three advisers, often talks about the “good people” who traveled to Washington that day, and the crowd’s large size, despite encouragement from some confidants to avoid the subject altogether.

Donald Trump called the U.S. Capitol rioters “peaceful people” and “patriots” in a jaw-dropping interview aired on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”https://t.co/CdxggQcxUY

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 11, 2021

 

In a statement, Trump confirmed talking to Babbitt’s family and said: “I want to know why is the person who shot Ashli Babbitt getting away with murder?”

Vigils, rallies, rap lyrics

Trump’s embrace of Babbitt culminated a six-month progression in which her death, and the fate of dozens of jailed rioters, became a topic invoked by a cluster of House Republicans, and the likes of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Her death has inspired vigils, rallies, rap lyrics, social media hashtags (#justiceforashli), T-shirts (“Ashli Babbitt, American Patriot”), as well as an article in a magazine, the American Conservative, comparing her fate to that of George Floyd, the Black man murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.

“They’ve got to pretend that Ashli Babbitt was some kind of Osama bin Laden or some kind of guy flying a plane into a building,” Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative podcaster with 1.7 million Twitter followers, told his audience.

D’Souza, whom Trump pardoned in 2018 for making illegal campaign contributions, said a “big lie” has been spun that “there were these seditious Trump supporters trying to overthrow the constitution mounting an al-Qaeda-style attack.”

Even Russian President Vladimir Putin joined in. Questioned during an interview with NBC News about political jailings in his country, Putin asked if the correspondent had “ordered the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman?”

When Trump invoked Babbitt’s name, right-wing organizers said it became easier to generate public interest for those arrested in the Jan. 6 riot.

“It didn’t make me feel more emboldened, but it made other people feel emboldened, which helps me,” said Cara Castronuova of Citizens Against Political Persecution, a New York-based group that has hosted rallies.

“He gives people a voice,” Castronuova said. “They feel if Trump said it, he’s the leader of the United States, so it’s okay to say it.”

Stuart Stevens, a veteran GOP political consultant long critical of Trump, said Republicans are seeking to recast the narrative of Jan. 6 because the commander in chief “inspired domestic terrorists to besiege the Capitol in an effort to overturn the election.”

“That’s not a very good picture, so you have to create an alternative reality — that Trump won and these were good Americans,” Stevens said. “What stirs up more emotion than an innocent woman — a former Air Force vet — who is shot attempting to restore the

“If you believe that,” he said, “you’ll probably respond to a fundraising appeal that comes with it and you’re more likely to show up at a Trump rally. It’s about intensity and money.”

Stevens, who grew up in Mississippi, compared the Republican campaign to the Lost Cause of the post-Civil War era, in which Southern sympathizers sought to recast defenders of slavery such as Gen. Robert E. Lee as a “benevolent guy.”

“It’s the same instinct, but this is more dangerous,” he said, because the Lost Cause was only embraced by some elements of the Democratic Party, not the entire organization. “It’s now the Republicans’ official position that Joe Biden was not legally elected. In their version, Babbitt wasn’t attempting to overthrow a peaceful process. She was either a tourist or a Trump supporter showing her deep affection to Donald Trump.”

‘The storm is here’: Ashli Babbitt’s journey from capital ‘guardian’ to invader

Until her death, Babbitt had lived the anonymous life of an ordinary American, serving in the military for 14 years. Her tenure included a stint protecting the Washington region with an Air National Guard unit known as the Capital Guardians.

After leaving the service, she took over a struggling pool service supply company in her native San Diego, and delved into right-wing politics. She used her Twitter account to praise Trump, denigrate undocumented immigrants and express support for the extremist QAnon ideology that is based on false claims. Her family said she was always political — she voted for President Barack Obama — but never more fervent than during Trump’s presidency.

Babbitt did not tell her mother she was going to Washington on Jan 6. But Witthoeft said she was not surprised. “I would have said, ‘Of course you are, baby,’ ” she said, adding her daughter “was a Trump rallygoer. She was going to them all over the place, the car parades, the Trump boat parades.”

In recent weeks, Witthoeft said she noticed Babbitt’s name mentioned more frequently on Fox News, Newsmax and OAN, an uptick she attributes to Trump and House Republicans such as Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.).

“I think everyone should know her name,” she said.

‘Protecting America’

On a Sunday in downtown Manhattan, across from the United States Courthouse, a crowd of Trump supporters assembled for a “Free Political Prisoners NOW” rally. Organizers promised that Babbitt’s mother and husband would call in to “address those in attendance and those watching around the world on our Live Stream.”

A counterdemonstration of activists cursing and tossing eggs greeted the 100 or so attendees, including activists carrying Trump flags, fringe political candidates and, at least for a few minutes, Bernhard Goetz, who in 1984 shot four Black youths on a train and was dubbed the “subway vigilante.”

“Say her name!” a speaker shouted.

“Ashli Babbitt! Ashli Babbitt!” the crowd chanted.

“American hero!” a woman yelled.

In the days after Jan. 6, interest in her death was far more muted. In Washington, only journalists showed up for a Jan. 9 candlelight vigil advertised for Babbitt at the Washington Monument. Fliers for the event described her as a “wife, mother, veteran, patriot” who was “unjustly killed by US Capitol police.”

At the same time, groups such as the Anti-Defamation League were tracking use of her name on right-wing social media, including a rendering of her face imposed over an image of the Capitol, a drop of blood falling from her neck. In the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, Andrew Anglin wrote that Babbitt “was murdered by cops.”

“She was protecting America from the enemies of the people,” Anglin wrote. “There was absolutely no reason to shoot her, and the cop should be charged with murder.”

Three months later, federal prosecutors cleared the Capitol Police officer who shot Babbitt of any wrongdoing, saying he had not violated her civil rights.

U.S. Capitol Police officer cleared of wrongdoing in fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt during Capitol attack

The officer, a lieutenant, was not identified, an omission seized on by House Republicans.

“Who executed Ashli Babbitt?” Gosar, a Trump ally, asked acting U.S. attorney general Jeffrey Rosen at a hearing in May. A month later, while questioning FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Gosar said the officer “appeared to be hiding, lying in wait and then gave no warning before killing her.”

Gosar’s statements about Babbitt’s death, as well as those arrested, have been echoed by Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Louis Gohmert (R-Tex.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

“If this country can demand justice for someone like George Floyd,” Greene told a Newsmax host, “then we can certainly demand justice for Ashli Babbitt.”

On Thursday, she, Gaetz, Gosar and Gohmert showed up at the D.C. jail, demanding to inspect the treatment of those detained in connection with Jan. 6. They were turned away.

Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the narrative suggested by such assertions allows Trump and his allies to “flip what happened and present the attackers as victims.”

“The only word that comes to mind is the amplification of a fringe narrative,” he said. “It’s not as though the narrative has changed. It’s spread and taken hold in larger portions of Trump’s base.”

Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign operative and the leader of Look Ahead America, said initially his group had difficulty drawing crowds to rallies for the Jan. 6 arrestees because “people were afraid to come. The FBI was putting peoples’ pictures up all over the place.”

But he said he has had an easier time more recently — a Phoenix rally in mid-July drew 250 people — “because the issue is being taken seriously.”

Trump, he said, inserted himself into the discourse because he’s “reacting to the fact that we have people bombarding legislators, doing rallies and putting up signs. We have done so much to raise awareness that he thinks, ‘It’s time I should probably talk about it.’ ”

At the Manhattan rally, the emcee, Castronuova, held a sign that read “Rest in Peace Ashli Babbitt” as Babbitt’s mother, speaking by phone, told the crowd she felt comfort knowing that the day her daughter died “was a good day for her.”

“Until those son-of-a-b----es took her out of it, she was in her moment,” Witthoeft said. “They tried to silence Ashli’s voice but all they did was make it louder because America was watching.”

“Stand tall, stand proud, stand together,” she told the crowd.

After the call ended, Castronuova promised the audience that “insurrectionist is no longer going to come up” when they “Google Ashli Babbitt’s name in five years.”

“They will not rewrite history,” Castronuova shouted. “She’s a martyr, okay?”

‘A bigger cause’

After her death, Ashli Babbitt’s body remained in Washington for weeks while law enforcement completed investigations. Then she was cremated, in keeping with her wishes, and her remains were flown back to San Diego in February, her mother said.

Not long after, her family boarded a boat and scattered her ashes in the waters off Dog Beach. A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”

Witthoeft, during the hour-long telephone interview, said she has avoided watching footage of Jan. 6, including “the video of my daughter being murdered.”

“I just won’t do it,” she said, beginning to cry. “They carried my daughter out like a dying animal.”

Since her daughter’s death, she has become politically active. On Saturday, she attended a Trump rally in Phoenix, where she received a standing ovation when Gosar introduced her.

She said she received no response from the offices of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) despite having left “at least 20 messages.” When she called the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Witthoeft said an aide told her that “ ‘although this incident is unfortunate, your daughter should not have stormed the Capitol.’ ”

Asked about Trump, whose call to her occurred six months after her daughter’s death, Witthoeft laughed nervously and said, “It’s a tricky question. This is such a roller coaster. I feel different things depending on the day.

“If I were to say something negative about Donald Trump,” she said, “my daughter would roll over in the grave, or on her seabed. Out of respect for my daughter, I shouldn’t ever say anything negative about him. She felt strongly enough about him to lay down her life for him and, in death, I believe she loves him still. I know she loves him still.”

Roger Witthoeft, Babbitt’s brother, said he partially blames Trump for his sister’s death. Trump’s speech that day, he said, “should’ve been: ‘I’ll do it in 2024, we’ll get them next time.’ ”

“Like every other rally, people would’ve cheered them on, and there might have been some little bit of stuff going on,” he said. “Everyone was just pumped up, and the word selection wasn’t the greatest.”

Nevertheless, Michelle and Roger Witthoeft both say they hope Trump runs again. And Roger Witthoeft said his sister, if she were alive, would not regret what she did Jan. 6. “She would’ve taken the exact same steps, knowing the outcome,” he said. “My sister died for a bigger picture, a bigger cause.”

These days, Michelle Wittheoft said, she writes letters to Jan. 6 arrestees.

“I plan on writing them all — not because I’m Ashli’s mom — I love and support what they did,” she said. “They’re in jail because they are Trump supporters.”

Referring to her daughter, she said, “She made the ultimate sacrifice to bring attention to a stolen election.”

“Half the country loves her and half the country hates her,” she said. “It’s weird to have your child belong to the world.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/07/30/ashli-babbitt-trump-capitol-martyr/

 

 

Edited July 31, 2021 by homersapien

[jj3jordan 2,056]

On 7/27/2021 at 4:16 PM, aubiefifty said:

‘Constant Trauma,’ Racial Slurs, and Gaslighting: Capitol Police Testify on the Jan. 6 Insurrection and Its Aftermath

 

“That day continues to be a constant trauma for us, literally every day,” said Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, from left, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn are sworn in before the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP)

AP

On the first day of the House select committee investigation into the January 6th insurrection, officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department who responded that day gave harrowing testimony about the abuse they endured at the hands of an angry mob of Trump supporters.

“That day continues to be a constant trauma for us, literally every day,” Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who suffered severe injuries and has been on leave for most of the months following the insurrection, told the committee on Tuesday.

D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges recalled a tense moment when an insurrectionist told him, “You will die on your knees.”

Hodges also testified to his bewilderment at seeing insurrectionists carrying flags with symbols indicating support of police officers. “My perpetual confusion, I saw the thin blue line flag, a symbol of support for law enforcement more than once being carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands and continued to assault us,” Hodges said.

Another witness, Officer Harry Dunn with the Capitol Police, testified that rioters called him a n***** after he told them he voted for Biden. “I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance, I responded: ‘Well I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?'” Dunn said.

He then said that a woman “in a pink MAGA shirt” yelled back, “You hear that guys? This n***** voted for Joe Biden.”

“No one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn said.

Dunn testified that officers were not forewarned by leadership about the levels of violence that would be present that day. “We were expecting civil disobedience as we do at the Capitol. At least that was what was relayed to us,” Dunn said, adding that they were told to expect “a couple arrests, name-calling, unfriendly people.”

“But nowhere near the level of violence or even close to it that we experienced,” he said.

Dunn went on to explain that he only heard about the violent plans through a friend who had texted him about it. “When I received the text message, it made the hairs on my neck rise, since our chain of command had not told us to prepare for these levels of violence,” Dunn told the committee.

Nine Democrats and two Republicans sit on the select committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s appointments to the committee, Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, both of whom have continued to endorse Trump’s lie that the election was stolen and have opposed a full investigation of the Capitol attack. The representatives “made statements and took actions that just made it ridiculous to put them on such a committee seeking the truth,” Pelosi said when justifying her decision.

D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who has been an outspoken critic of Republican politicians attempting to minimize the attack, was the fourth witness to appear at Tuesday’s hearing. Fanone suffered multiple injuries that day at the hands of the insurrectionists, including a heart attack and traumatic brain injury. Rioters dragged him into the crowd, stole a munition off his body, and beat him with “their fists and hard metal objects” while also attacking him with a Taser. It was only when he yelled that he had children, he said, that the beatings stopped and other police officers managed to drag him out of the mob.

“I was electrocuted again and again and again,” he said. “I’m sure I was screaming, but I don’t think I could even hear my own voice.”

But many Republicans are trying to deny the truth and painting the riots as a peaceful protest. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) has said that the rioters were “people that love this country.” And Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) described the rioters’ behavior at the Capitol as a “normal tourist visit.” The officers’ testimony, however, proves those Republicans are very clearly wrong.

“I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them, and too many in this room … are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or hell actually wasn’t that bad,” Fanone said, pounding his fist on the table. “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

Fanone continued, “Nothing, truly nothing, has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day. And in doing so, betray their oath of office.”

Sergeant Gonnell also criticized Republicans, saying they have tried “to whitewash the facts into something other than what they unmistakably reveal: an attack on our democracy by violent domestic extremists,” he said. What law enforcement officers are seeking, however, is “accountability and justice.”

Throughout his testimony, Officer Hodges of the D.C. police referred to the insurrection as an act of terrorism and the people who carried it out “terrorists.” Asked why he chose those words by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Hodges told the committee he had come prepared for the question. He then read, verbatim, the legal definitions of domestic terrorism from the U.S. code.

Finally, near the end of the hearing, Hodges spoke directly to the 11 members of the select committee. He and his colleagues had done their jobs on January 6th to great physical and mental harm. But it was now time, he said, for members of Congress to hold accountable those in power who might have aided or enabled the insurrection. “I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role” in this “terrorist attack,” he said.

Doesn’t this testimony of all the bad things said to capitol police officers sound a lot like what BLM and Antifa rioters said and did to cops all over the country hundreds of times?  Seems like I remember constant shouting of slurs including the N word and others plus throwing various items at them sometimes accompanied by fire. NYPD cops  get doused with water regularly on the beat.  Seems like the 50 or so aggressive screamers at the capitol pale in comparison to the treatment cops from numerous cities and states in the big picture.