The mob used a large ladder to try to enter the Capitol Building through the front door and clashed with the police.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Imag
- A police officer testified during an investigation into the January attack on the U.S. Capitol.
- The official stated that the mob acted on a “false” claim that Donald Trump’s election failure was fraudulent.
- A team of nine is investigating the incident.
On Tuesday, a police officer injured in the melee told the congressional panel that on January 6, supporters of then President Donald Trump tried to overthrow his defeat in the election and launched an attack on the U.S. Capitol. The characteristics were similar. Heartbreaking violence on the battlefield of the Middle Ages.
At the first hearing of the House Investigative Committee led by the Democratic Party, the official Aquilino Gonell described in prepared testimony that because Trump falsely claimed that the election was passed extensively Voting fraud and stealing from him, the mob angered the mob.
Gonell was one of four policemen who were asked to testify. He said:
What we suffered that day was like something on a medieval battlefield. We fought hand-to-hand, fighting inch by inch to prevent violent mobs from invading the Capitol building in order to subvert our democratic process. The physical violence we experience is terrifying and devastating.
After Senate Republicans prevented the establishment of an independent committee to investigate the attack, the nine-member team was formed. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed committee members. Its chairman is Democrat Benny Thompson.
Gonel and Harry Dunn of the United States Congress Police and officials of the District of Columbia Police Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges were the first witnesses to the group.
Dunn, who is black, said in his prepared testimony that when he tried to defend the Capitol, the mob called him a racial slander because he challenged their claim that no one voted for Biden and told them he himself Is a supporter of Biden.
Four people died on the day of the violence. One of the rioters was shot dead by the police, and the other three died of natural causes. A congressional police officer who was attacked by protesters died the next day. Two policemen who were involved in defending the Capitol later committed suicide. More than one hundred policemen were injured.
Windows
When hundreds of Trump supporters tried to prevent Congress from officially proving that the current President Joe Biden had won the 2020 election, they rushed into the Capitol, smashed windows, clashed with the police, and made lawmakers and the then vice president Mike Pence scrambled for safety, and the police were at a loss.
The riots occurred after Trump gave a speech to supporters, in which Republicans reiterated his false claims about election fraud. Pelosi called the attack an “attempt to overthrow the government.”
Most Republicans in the House of Representatives strongly opposed the establishment of the committee, saying that it was politically motivated by the Democratic Party.
Pelosi rejected two of the five Republicans selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for the group last week because they feared that they would undermine the integrity of the committee, causing McCarthy to withdraw the views of the remaining three Republicans. name.
The committee will include two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger, who both condemned Trump’s false statements about the election and voted with the Democrats to impeach him in January. Cheney was stripped of his position in the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives for criticizing Trump.
Trump’s ally McCarthy mocked Cheney and Kinsinger as “Pelosi Republicans.”
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said: “What we want to convey at the hearing is what it feels like these brave police officers are standing on the front lines, how large their numbers are, and how militarized the members of the crowd are.” Adam Schiff told reporters on Monday.
Fanone was pulled into the rioting crowd, beaten, taser attacked, and snatched his badge, police radio and ammunition. When a mob tried to pull his gun from the holster, Fanone could hear him saying that he planned to shoot him.
More than 535 people have faced criminal charges for the riots, and 4 of them have been charged for the attack on Fanone.
