Notes From An Insurrection
The testimony of Capitol and DC police officers attacked on January 6 is informative and damning
As the January 6 committee began hearings, the first testimonies are coming from police officers whose thankless job was to quell the violent insurrection.
Their words say more than any third-party ever could.
DC Police Officer Michael Fanone said
"the time, the place, and the circumstances of that rally, that rhetoric, and those events to me leads in the direction of our president (the former president) and other members (of Congress)”
DC Officer Daniel Hodges:
"As patrol officers, we can only deal with the crimes that happen on the streets, the misdemeanors and occasionally the violent felonies, but you guys are the only ones we've got to deal with crimes that occur above us. I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this.”
He continued by saying that the Committee needed to determine if “anyone in power” were involved in any way with this “terrorist attack,”
Because we can't do it. We're not allowed to. And I think the majority of Americans are really looking forward to that as well.”
US Capitol Police Officer Aquilino Gonell thought he was going to die. He gave a harrowing account of fighting with insurrections, and noted that the same people who abhor athletes who kneel in protest of racial inequality have been noticeably silent about the insurrection.
Finally, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn made an analogy about the person or persons responsible for the attack, comparing them to a “hitman.” And as he so eloquently put it,
“When a hitman kills someone, he goes to jail. But the person who hired him also goes to jail.”
Officer Dunn also gave a particularly telling account of the sensibilities of the rioters:
“One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled 'You hear that guys this nigger voted for Joe Biden.
Then the crowd, perhaps about 20 people, joined in screaming: Booo, F***ing nigger...
No one had ever ever called me a nigger while wearing the uniform of a capital police officer.”
Officer Dunn learned the hardest way possible that we live in both extraordinary, yet typical times.
Extraordinary in that our Capitol had never been breached by rioters.
Typical in that old, unceasing hatred has always remained at the surface of this nation’s workings and strivings.