January 25, 2025

Respecting and honoring the heroes of January 6th

PERF members,

The events of January 6, 2021, are back in the news, and I’m concerned that the political conversation about the President’s pardons of nearly 1,600 individuals, more than 600 of whom were charged with the felony of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, has taken the focus away from what police officers endured that day. On that day, thousands attacked the U.S. Capitol building to prevent lawmakers from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. They fought with police officers for hours, and, thanks to the bravery of those officers, the riot was quelled. As of three weeks ago, 172 of these individuals had pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement. By their own admission, they assaulted police. About 140 officers were injured, including Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the following day. Four officers who responded that day have since died by suicide.

The officers present that day risked their lives to protect American political leaders and our democratic process, and they paid an enormous price. While many are discussing the politics of this issue, we must not forget those who were injured, died, or otherwise still carry the trauma of that day. I’d like to put the focus back on those officers by sharing how three of them described that day in testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United State Capitol and a U.S. Senate Joint Committee.

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards was knocked out in an early conflict. After regaining consciousness, she returned to serve on the skirmish line alongside Officer Sicknick, whom she saw turning pale after being pepper sprayed.

U.S. Capitol Police Captain Carneysha Mendoza described officers “receiv[ing] a lot of gas exposure” and “being knocked to the ground and hit with various objects that were thrown by rioters.” She said, “Of the multitude of events I’ve worked in my nearly 19-year career on the department, this was by far the worst of the worst.”

And Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges was attacked as he and his unit approached the Capitol on foot. He recovered to help defend the Capitol, where he said one rioter “latched onto my face and got his thumb in my right eye, attempting to gouge it out” then another “grabbed the front of my gas mask and used it to beat my head against [a] door.”

Here are their own descriptions of the tragic events and heroic actions of that dark day.

Officers clash with rioters outside of the Capitol on January 6, 2021

Officer Caroline Edwards, U.S. Capitol Police

I was called a lot of things on January 6, 2021, and the days thereafter. I was called Nancy Pelosi’s dog, called incompetent, called a hero and a villain. I was called a traitor to my country, my oath, and my Constitution. In actuality, I was none of those things. I was an American, standing face to face with other Americans, asking myself many, many times how we had gotten here.

I had been called names before, but never had my patriotism or duty been called into question. I, who got up every day, no matter how early the hour or how late I got in the night before, put on my uniform to protect America’s symbol of democracy. I, who spent countless hours in the baking sun and freezing snow to make sure that America’s elected officials were able to do their job. I, whose literal blood, sweat, and tears were shed that day, defending the building that I spent countless holidays and weekends working in. ...

Edwards and four other officers standing guard outside the Capitol as the rioters gather

There were about five of us on that line. There was our bike rack, then, at the bottom of the Pennsylvania Avenue walkway, right by Peace Circle, there was another bike rack. The crowd had kind of gathered there. ...

I’ve worked, I can conservatively say, probably hundreds of civil disturbance events. I know when I’m being turned into a villain, and that’s when I turned to my sergeant, and I stated the understatement of the century. I said, “Sarge, I think we’re going to need a few more people down here.” ...

They ripped the first barricade down, and they approached our bike racks. At that time, we started holding on, grabbing the bike racks. There weren’t many of us, so I grabbed the middle between two different bike racks. I wasn’t under any pretense that I could hold it for very long, but I just wanted to make sure that we could get more people down and get our CDU units time to answer the call.

So we started grappling over the bike racks. I felt the bike rack come on top of my head, and I was pushed backward, and my foot caught the stair behind me, and my chin hit the handrail, and then I — at that point I had blacked out — but the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me. …

 Officer Edwards striking the stairs as she is forced down by rioters

[When I regained consciousness,] adrenaline kicked in. I ran toward the West Front, and I tried to hold the line at the Senate steps at the Lower West Terrace. More people kept coming at us. It just seemed like more and more people started coming on to the West Front. They started overpowering us. That was right about when MPD’s officers showed up.

Their bike officers pushed the crowd back and allowed our CDU units, as well as theirs, to form that very thin line between us and the rioters at that time. I fell behind that line, and for a while, I started decontaminating people who had gotten sprayed and treating people medically who needed it. ...

After a while, I got back on the line. It was on the House side of the Lower West Terrace. I was holding that line for a while. There weren’t many of us over there. Officer [Brian] Sicknick was behind me for most of the time, about 30 to 45 minutes that I was down there. We were just doing the best we could. …

All of a sudden, I see movement to the left of me, and I turned, and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in his hands, and he was ghostly pale. I figured at that point that he had been sprayed, and I was concerned — my cop alarm bells went off — because if you get sprayed with pepper spray, you’re going to turn red. He turned just about as pale as this sheet [of paper] here. I looked back to see what had hit him, what had happened, and that’s when I got sprayed in the eyes as well. I was taken to be decontaminated by another officer, but we didn’t get the chance, because we were then tear gassed. ...

Officers outside the Capitol during the moment a rioter begins spraying them with a chemical agent

When I fell behind that [MPD] line, I can just remember my breath catching in my throat, because what I saw was just a war scene. It was something like I had seen out of the movies. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle. I’m trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd. But I’m not combat trained. That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond any law enforcement officer has ever trained for. I just remember that moment of stepping behind that line and seeing the absolute war zone that the West Front had become.

Captain Carneysha Mendoza, U.S. Capitol Police

Once inside the Memorial Door, I immediately noticed a large crowd of possibly 200 rioters yelling in front of me. Since I was alone, I turned to go back out so I could enter through another door, but within the few seconds it took to walk back to the door I entered, there were already countless rioters outside banging on the door. I had no choice but to proceed through the violent crowd already in the building.

I made my way through the crowd by yelling and pushing people out of my way until I saw Capitol Police Civil Disturbance Units in riot gear holding a line in the hallway, to keep rioters from penetrating deeper into the building. I immediately jumped in line with them to assist them with holding the crowd of rioters.

Rioters forcing their way past officers to enter the Capitol

At some point, my right arm got wedged between the rioters and railing along the wall. A CDU sergeant pulled my arm free, and had he not, I’m certain it would have been broken.

Shortly after that, an officer was pushed and fell to the floor. I assisted the officer to a safer location and got back in line. At some point, the crowd breeched the line officers worked so hard to maintain. Civil Disturbance Units began to re-deploy to keep rioters from accessing other areas of the building.

I proceeded to the Rotunda where I noticed a heavy smoke-like residue and smelled what I believed to be military-grade CS gas — a familiar smell. It was mixed with fire extinguisher spray deployed by the rioters. The rioters continued to deploy CS inside the Rotunda.

Officers received a lot of gas exposure, which is a lot worse inside the building versus outside, because there’s nowhere for it to go. I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day.

I witnessed officers being knocked to the ground and hit with various objects that were thrown by rioters. I was unable to determine exactly what those objects were. ...

Of the multitude of events I’ve worked in my nearly 19-year career on the department, this was by far the worst of the worst. We could have had 10 times the amount of people working with us, and I still believe this battle would have been just as devastating.

As an American and an Army veteran, it’s sad to see us attacked by our fellow citizens. I’m sad to see the unnecessary loss of life sustained. I’m sad to see the impact this has had on Capitol Police officers, and I’m sad to see the impact this event has had on our agency and on the country.

Officer Daniel Hodges, Metropolitan Police Department

I am a member of Civil Disturbance Unit 42 and was working in that capacity on the day in question. ... We started that day at 7:30 AM and our assignment was to maintain high visibility along Constitution Avenue, namely the blocks leading up to President’s Park …

At approximately 1:30 PM, the commander authorized rapid response platoons to deploy their hard gear and respond to the Capitol, including CDU 42.

The last thing I remember hearing over the air before departing for the Capitol grounds was confirmation that our Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team had discovered a “device.” Given which unit was being associated with this “device,” I immediately realized MPD had discovered a bomb of some type near the Capitol. This thought was never far from my mind for the rest of the day. …

The crowd was thinner the further out from the Capitol you were, so as we marched, the resistance we initially met was verbal. …

We had been marching in two columns, but as we got closer to the West Terrace, the crowd became so dense that in order to progress we marched single-file, with our hands on the shoulders of the man in front of us in order to avoid separation. However, as we came close to the Terrace, our line was divided, and we came under attack. A man attempted to rip my baton from my hands, and we wrestled for control. I retained my weapon, and after I pushed him back, he yelled at me, “You’re on the wrong team!”

Cut off from our leadership at the front of our formation, we huddled up and assessed the threat surrounding us. One man tried and failed to build a rapport with me, shouting, “Are you my brother?!” Another [took] a different tack, shouting, “You will die on your knees!”

I was at the front of our group and determined we had to push our way through the crowd in order to join the defense proper, so I began shouting “Make way!” as I forged ahead, hoping that I’m clearing a path for others to follow. However, as I looked back, I saw that the rest of the group came under attack and were unable to follow. The crowd attempted to physically bar the rest of the platoon from following. I backtrack[ed] and started pulling terrorists off my team by their backpacks. Around this time, one of the terrorists who had scaled the scaffolding that adorned the Capitol at the time threw something heavy down at me and struck me in the head, disorienting me (I suspect this resulted in the likely concussion I dealt with in the weeks after). Another man attempted to disarm me of my baton again, and we wrestled for control. He kicked me in my chest as we went to the ground. I was able to retain my baton again, but I ended up on my hands and knees and blind; the medical mask I was wearing to protect myself from the coronavirus was pulled up over my eyes so I couldn’t see. I braced myself against the impact of their blows and feared the worst. Thankfully my platoon had repelled their own attackers and got me back on my feet. The crowd started chanting “U-S-A!” at us, and we struck out again for the West Terrace.

Jan. 6, 2021, rioters crowd around the inaugural platform constructed outside the west side of the Capitol. 

I lead the charge again through the midst of crowd-control munitions, explosions, and smoke engulfing the area. Terrorists were breaking apart metal fencing and bike racks into individual pieces, presumably to use as weapons. Thankfully we made it to the secondary defense line on the West Terrace that MPD and Capitol Police were managing to hold. The rest of my platoon got behind the line, and we [took] stock of the situation. I realized that back during the previous assault someone had stolen my radio; from that point on, I was in the dark as to our current status and when reinforcements would arrive. Terrorists were scaling the scaffolding on both our sides, the tower that was in front of us, and attempting to break the waist-high metal fencing that was the only barrier we had, aside from ourselves. …

To my perpetual confusion, I saw the Thin Blue Line flag, a symbol of their support for law enforcement, more than once being carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands and continued to assault us.

A Thin Blue Line flag can be seen in the photo above

The acrid sting of CS gas (tear gas) and OC spray (mace) hung in the air, as the terrorists threw our own CS gas canisters back at us and sprayed us with their own OC, either that they brought themselves or stole from us. Later I learned that at least one of them was spraying us in the face with wasp spray. …

Eventually there is a surge in the crowd. The fence buckled and broke apart, and we were unable to hold the line. A chaotic melee ensued. Terrorists pushed through the line and engaged us in hand-to-hand combat. Several attempted to knock me over and steal my baton. One latched onto my face and got his thumb in my right eye, attempting to gouge it out. I cried in pain and managed to shake him off before any permanent damage was done. I couldn’t engage anyone fully for the moment. Another 20 terrorists move in to attack while I am occupied. It’s all we could do to keep ourselves on our feet and continue to fall back. I’m sprayed with a fire extinguisher, and a red smoke grenade burned at our feet. …

The terrorists had claimed most of the West Terrace, cornering myself and other officers on the southern edge. We took a side stair off the terrace, up to an upper landing, followed by more stairs up and inside. …

The Capitol building is labyrinthine, but judging from the sound of intense combat, I could tell this hallway led outside to where the terrorists had forced our retreat. Officers were stacked deep, but every so often, one would fall back from the front line, nursing an injury or struggling to breathe, and those who remained would take a step forward.

It was a battle of inches, with one side pushing the other a few and then the other side regaining their ground. At the time, I,and I suspect many others in the hallway, did not know that the terrorists had gained entry to the building by breaking in doors and windows elsewhere, so we believed ours to be the last line of defense before the terrorists had true access to the building, and potentially our elected representatives. …

The two sides were at a stalemate at a metal door frame that sat in the middle of the hallway. At the front line, I inserted myself so that the frame was at my back in an effort to give myself something to brace against and provide additional strength when pushing forward. Unfortunately, soon after I secured this position, the momentum shifted, and we lost the ground that got me there. On my left was a man with a clear riot shield stolen during the assault. He slammed it against me and, with the weight of all the bodies pushing behind him, trapped me. My arms were pinned and effectively useless, trapped against either the shield on my left or the door frame on my right. With my posture granting me no functional strength or freedom of movement, I was effectively defenseless and gradually sustaining injury from the increasing pressure of the mob.

Directly in front of me, a man seized the opportunity of my vulnerability. He grabbed the front of my gas mask and used it to beat my head against the door. He switched to pulling it off my head, the straps stretching against my skull and straining my neck. …  Eventually, he succeeded in stripping away my gas mask, and a new rush of exposure to CS gas and OC spray hit me. The mob of terrorists were coordinating their efforts now, shouting, “Heave! Ho!” as they synchronized pushing their weight forward, crushing me further against the metal door frame. The man in front of me grabbed my baton that I still held in my hands, and in my current state, I was unable to retain my weapon. He bashed me in the head and face with it, rupturing my lip and adding additional injury to my skull.

A rioter grabbing Officer Hodges by the gas mask as he and other officers attempt to hold back a mob forcing their way further into Capitol

At this point, I knew that I couldn’t sustain much more damage and remain upright. At best I would collapse and be a liability to my colleagues, at worst be dragged out into the crowd and lynched. Unable to move or otherwise signal the officer behind me that I needed to fall back, I did the only thing I could still do and screamed for help.

Thankfully my voice was heard over the cacophony of yells and the blaring alarm. The officer closest to me was able to extricate me from my position and another helped me fall back to the building again.

I encourage everyone to watch the 40-minute video produced by the New York Times that uses rioters’ videos and police body-worn camera footage to reconstruct the events of that day minute by minute. As you watch that video and read the narratives above, remember that every single individual who attacked police officers, broke into the Capitol, and hunted for politicians to harm was pardoned or had their sentence commuted this week. That’s not justice for those officers, or for our democracy.

Best,

Chuck