Lawmakers feared death as mob attacked
WASHINGTON – The thuds and the sounds of shattering glass grew louder and more ominous.
Stuck inside the House of Representatives and on the Senate floor, members of Congress and their staffs became steadily more alarmed. Desks were quickly employed as barricades, buying time for some to escape to a more secure location.
Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., turned to Rep. Colin Allred, DTexas, a 6-foot-1 former linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, and in a scene more reminiscent of 9/11 confrontations with terrorist hijackers than a day in Congress, asked him if he was willing to stand and fight.
“He said, ‘I’m ready to go,’ ” Maloney said.
For U.S. lawmakers, Jan. 6 started with a solemnity befitting a task that has been repeated every four years since the nation’s founding. But a halfhour into a session focused on confirming the election of President-elect Joe Biden, everything changed.
As supporters of President Donald Trump smashed their way into the Capitol, members of Congress were thrust into a chaotic wartime scene. Tear gas was fired. Guns were drawn. Barricades were erected. Blood was spilled.
A few elected officials reverted to their military backgrounds and stood shoulder to shoulder with Capitol Police. Others drew on medical experience to comfort and assist elderly peers. Many called loved ones and prayed.
“I keep asking, ‘Is this America?’ ” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., after police began evacuating lawmakers to an undisclosed location in the Capitol.
Police officers “tried to lock us in to keep us safe,” she said, “but that ended when people started pounding on the doors. We heard them shooting at the doors. People are in hand-to-hand combat in the Capitol.”
Interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, as well as their descriptions of the day posted on Facebook and Twitter, make it clear that two emotions dominated: shock and determination.
After the siege ended, lawmakers – many of whom blamed the mob’s incursion on Trump’s efforts to undermine the election results and claim a victory he didn’t win – finished the task of confirming the win of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the nation’s first woman and Black or Asian vice president.
‘There’s not enough security’
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., had a sinking feeling when he saw flag-waving Trump supporters charging up the Capitol steps. “I texted all my staff that there’s not enough security outside,” he recalled. Capitol Police told Quigley and others that the building had been breached and ordered lawmakers to grab gas masks stowed nearby.
“We were crouching down and going wherever the police thought that we’d be safest” as loud bangs, either tear gas or bullets, filled the air, he said. “We sort of made a run for it. I’ve been shot at, so I guess I’ve been in life-threatening situations, but not one involving the House floor of the most important democracy in the world.”
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., saw House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence escorted away but assumed they would be back soon.
“I never would have imagined that, you know, the kind of attack that we witnessed and experienced on the Capitol, I never would have imagined, ever, that would happen to the United States of America,” he said.
Text messages overwhelmed his phone, friends asking if he was safe, but he had no idea an attack of that magnitude was unfolding. It was only when his wife spelled out that there were rioters nearby in Statuary Hall that he realized he and others were in danger.
Lawmakers fear being killed
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, was among two dozen hiding behind the railing of the chamber’s upper gallery.
“I crouched down with my colleagues,” said Escobar, from El Paso. “I heard Capitol Police yelling, ‘Put your weapons down. Back away from the door!’ I saw them pointing their guns toward the door, and on the other side of that thin, little door was an angry mob and a group of domestic terrorists intent on doing harm.”
As some lawmakers were escorted out of the chambers, they saw for themselves the throngs of insurrectionists filling the building.
“It was unnerving,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“Can you imagine the kind of carnage that could have really happened if those terrorists had been successful?” he said. “The potential to wipe out the leadership in the United States House of Representatives was a few feet away.”
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., the new vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, called his wife, Sonya. He was concerned about her and their three children as texts poured in from family, friends and even constituents checking whether he was safe.
“I needed to hear her voice. I needed her to hear my voice,” he recalled. “I needed to ensure her that I was safe.”
Much of what he learned was via social media, including the shooting of a female Trump supporter from San Diego, who died from her injuries.
“There was a breach on many fronts that were caused and incited by President Donald Trump,” said Horsford, joining a growing number of lawmakers calling for Trump to be impeached. “He is a danger, he is mentally unstable.”
Because of his former occupation as a surgeon, Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., said he flashed back to other incidents in which he had to keep his cool to ensure that others did not lose theirs.
“There were some people who were quite alarmed and some apprehensive,” he said. “I tried to remain as calm as I could, and we were able to get through it.”
‘I prayed to God’
Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., turned to his faith as visions of a horrific mass shooting situation filled his head in the absence of concrete information.
“I prayed,” Ruiz said. “I prayed to God. There were other members who started praying.”
A doctor by training, Ruiz starting working with the Capitol physician to ensure that elderly and diabetic members of Congress were cared for as they were escorted to a safe area.
As the Trump mob tried to breach the doors of the House, Rep. Pat Fallon, RTexas, stood with two of his fellow Texas Republicans, Navy veteran Tony Gonzales and former sheriff Troy Nehls, and vowed not to leave. “We broke off furniture to make clubs to defend the U.S. House of Representatives,” Fallon wrote on Facebook.