The past is what you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember. – Harold Pinter
This seems a good time for a flashback in case your memory, like most Americans, has gotten hazy. Remember Auqilino Gonell, the U.S. Capitol sergeant who testified about the attack on January 6?
“My fellow officers and I were punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob who apparently saw us law enforcement officers, dedicated to ironically protecting them as U.S. citizens, as an impediment in their attempted insurrection.”
“All of them — all of them were telling us, ‘Trump sent us,’” Aquilino A. Gonell, a U.S. Capitol Police sergeant, said on Tuesday as he tearfully recounted the horrors of defending Congress on Jan. 6, testifying at the first hearing of a House select committee to investigate the attack.
One by one, in excruciating detail, Sergeant Gonell and three other officers who faced off with the hordes that broke into the Capitol told Congress of the brutal violence, racism and hostility they suffered as a throng of angry rioters, acting in the name of President Donald J. Trump , beat, crushed and shocked them.
Officer Michael Fanone told Congress:
As my police body-worn camera shows, thousands upon thousands of people seemingly determined to get past us by any means necessary. At some point during the fighting, I was dragged from the line of officers and into the crowd. I heard someone scream, “I got one.” As I was swarmed by a violent mob, they ripped off my badge, they grabbed and stripped me of my radio, they seized ammunition that was secured to my body. They began to beat me with their fists and with what felt like hard metal objects.
At one point, I came face-to-face with an attacker who repeatedly launched for me and attempted to remove my firearm. I heard chanting from some in the crowd, “Get his gun and kill him with his own gun.” I was aware enough to recognize I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm. I was electrocuted again, and again, and again, with a taser. I’m sure I was screaming, but I don’t think I could even hear my own voice.
My body camera captured the violence of the crowd directed toward me during those very frightening moments. It’s an important part of the record for this committee’s investigation, for the country’s understanding of how I was assaulted and nearly killed as the mob attacked the Capitol that day. And I hope that everyone will be able to watch it.
“You hear that, guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden!” a woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled toward Capitol Police Pfc. Harry Dunn, he recounted, after Dunn said he voted for President Biden.
“Boo! F****** n*****!” the crowd of about 20 yelled back, Dunn recalled.
Dunn said his story wasn’t unique. He heard from another Black officer that insurrectionists yelled at that officer: “Put your gun down, and we’ll show you what kind of n***** you really are!”
Source: The Bulwark.