How battered D.C. police made a stand against mob
WASHINGTON » Blinded by smoke and choking on gas and bear spray, stripped of his radio and badge, District of Columbia police officer Michael Fanone and his battered colleagues fought to push back rioters trying to force their way into an entrance to the U.S. Capitol.
The officers had been at it for hours, unaware that others in the mob had already breached the building through different entrances. For them, the West Terrace doors - which open into a tunnel-like hallway allowing access to an area under the Rotunda - represented the last stand before the Capitol fell.
“Dig in!” Fanone yelled, his voice cracking, as he and others were being struck with their own
clubs and shields, ripped from their hands by rioters. “We got to get these doors shut.”
An officer since 9/11, the 40-year-old Fanone, who has four daughters, had been working a crime-suppression detail in another part of the District on Jan. 6. He and his partner sped to the Capitol when dispatchers broadcast an urgent citywide emergency call.
“They were overthrowing the Capitol, the seat of democracy, and I f---ing went,” Fanone said.
The officers at the West Terrace eventually pushed people away from the doors. It was only then that Fanone saw the immense, volatile crowd stretched out in front of him and realized what police were up against.
“We weren’t battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel,” he said in the first public account from District police officers who fought to protect the Capitol during last week’s siege. “We were battling 15,000 people. It looked like a medieval battle scene.”
Someone in the crowd grabbed Fanone’s helmet, pulled him to the ground and dragged him on his stomach down a set of steps. At around the same time, police said, the crowd pulled a second officer down the stairs. Police said that chaotic and violent scene was captured in a video that would later spread widely on the Internet.
Rioters swarmed, battering the officers with metal pipes peeled from scaffolding and a pole with an American flag attached, police said. Both were struck with stun guns. Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and drifted in and out of consciousness.
All the while, the mob was chanting “U.S.A.” over and over and over again.
“We got one! We got one!” Fanone said he heard rioters shout. “Kill him with his own gun!”
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District police had been worried for weeks about trouble on Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to tally the electoral votes and formalize Presidentelect Joe Biden’s victory. Supporters of President Donald Trump who believe his false claims that he was the real winner called for a mass demonstration, with Trump tweeting, “Be there, will be wild!”
The 3,800-member District police force, responsible for protecting city streets, not federal buildings, had all hands on deck that day and asked neighboring jurisdictions to line up help if needed. The mayor asked the District National Guard to assist with traffic control, freeing officers for more-urgent duties.
But no such preparations were being made at the Capitol building, a prime target on social media postings calling for an armed insurrection. The Capitol has its own 2,100-member police force controlled by Congress. Its police chief at the time, Steven Sund, who resigned in the riot’s aftermath, said that he began to worry Jan. 4 and that his requests to enlist the Guard were repeatedly thwarted until the Capitol was already overrun.
Acting District police chief Robert Contee III has said District officers “saved democracy” by coming to the rescue of Capitol Police personnel overwhelmed by the crowd. Authorities said the attack resulted in the deaths of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who had been confronting the mob, as well as four rioters, including a woman fatally shot by a Capitol officer.
This account is based on interviews with Contee, in the top job just four days before the riot, along with members of his command staff and officers on the front lines.
These police leaders talked of battles using metaphors typically reserved for wars, describing fighting on three fronts, including the West Terrace, one of the few places where police prevented rioters from breaking through. Had those rioters succeeded, authorities said, thousands more people could have poured into the Capitol, with possible catastrophic consequences.
Nearly 60 District police officers and an unknown number of Capitol officers were hurt in the siege, with injuries that included bruised and sprained limbs, concussions and irritated lungs. Sicknick, who police said physically engaged rioters, died the next day. Authorities said he was injured, but they did not elaborate.
A time-lapsed securitycamera video police played for The Washington Post shows the crowd building along First Street, near the Capitol Reflecting Pool, around 11:15 a.m. First, a couple hundred showed. Trump started his incendiary speech outside the White House shortly before noon.
Inside the Capitol, the House convened at noon and the Senate at 12:30 p.m. in preparation for the joint session, with some Republican lawmakers preparing to contest the count.
By then, thousands of Trump supporters were starting to stream toward the Capitol. The demonstrators were mostly White people, many wearing red Make America Great Again hats or other similar regalia, and some carrying Confederate battle flags.
They began encircling an expanse of grass protected only by some makeshift metal fences and bicycle racks - and only a few Capitol Police officers.
At 12:50 p.m., protesters jumped bike racks, the first of many breaches that day, and headed en masse toward the Capitol steps and the towering scaffolding prepared for the inaugural viewing stands and media tower.
Capitol Police called District police for help around 1 p.m., and the first officers quickly arrived, dressed in bright yellow jackets. Within 15 minutes, they streamed down the Capitol steps toward the surging crowd, led by Robert Glover, the District police on-scene commander who this week was promoted to the rank of commander.
He declared a riot at 1:50 p.m.
By then, congressional staffers were being told to rush to secure locations. Suspected pipe bombs had been found outside the grounds.
Glover, a 26-year veteran who headed the force’s Special Events Branch, overseeing security for presidential inaugurations and largescale demonstrations, met with a Capitol Police su