Original subtitles

Let's go, D. Hodges!

I'm walking here!

Ow!

Cut it out, cut it out!

DANIEL When I first learned about that video

that went around on the internet

about our defense in the tunnel,

I hit play, and I watched what happened,

and I hit pause, and I wrote down what happened.

And I kept doing that until I reached the end.

I was embarrassed.

No one wants their 15 minutes of fame to be crying out for help,

you know, especially if your job is a police officer.

But ultimately, I'm glad that it got out and got around,

because it's important to get the truth out

about what happened.

I almost feel like somebody else took these photos.

But it was me.

I will always think about what happened that day.

I will always have these photos to tell these stories.

I'm trying to capture images showing you one of the most

important times in American history.

And I can't wait for the day where I think that my son

will be interested so I can explain to him what happened,

that I was there at the Capitol building.

I was scared for my fucking life, and you know,

I thought about you.

There's no way I can forget.

When footage of that day was replayed,

and even today is replayed, I change the channel.

And I still don't like to watch it. I just, I can't.

I didn't want to think about it anymore.

I really, I tried really hard, as best I could,

to block that day out.

I didn't really share immediately with, like, family

what really went down, um, but I've thought about

January 6th a lot, you know and trying to wrap

my head around really what happened that day.

When I look back and I think back,

the gravity of everything that that happened,

this is history. People be talking about this for years.

And here I sit dead center,

four days on the job...

four days and the weight of the world on your shoulders.

I want everyone to know,

there was a huge price to pay

for our democracy on that day.

Sure, where do you want me to go?

Right back in the...

I was there, I knew what happened,

I was there all day, and it's rare that you get

the opportunity to put your finger on the scale of history.

And influence things in a way

that brings the truth to light.

My dad said democracy needs the ground to stand on,

and that ground is the truth.

So, we gotta tell the truth.

If we can handle it.

The greatest strength of democracy is that

it comes from the people.

The weakness of democracy is that it has so many enemies,

other pretenders to the throne.

They always describe Donald Trump

as a larger-than-life figure.

I'm appreciating that people are not larger than life,

people are just the right size for a democracy

where everybody gets one vote,

one voice, and we need everybody to participate.

Good afternoon. When I think about the most basic way

to explain the importance of elections in the United States,

there's a phrase that always comes to mind.

It may sound straightforward, but it's meaningful...

Sometimes the truth is like a second chance,

and I believe that.

You ready?

Morning, morning.

Ten bucks, ten bucks. Hats and shirts.

I'm a native son.

This is the city that raised me, and, you know,

as crazy as this sounds, I felt like everything

that I had gone through here in this city prepared me

to be the chief of police that I was on that day.

I officially took over the job as chief of police

on January the 2nd, so 4 days before January the 6th.

Whether that was destiny or whether it was just you know,

I drew the short straw, I don't know.

- Whose streets? - Our streets.

- Whose streets? - Our streets.

- Whose streets? - Our streets.

It conjures up memories of what happened on that day,

kind of hits you in the gut.

The officers are here below, I mean look at these people

that are standing overhead, right,

and we're not knowing who's armed in the crowd.

We had already recovered firearms and so forth, so...

I mean, there's just a huge sense of vulnerability.

People were running for their lives that day,

and it didn't matter, it didn't matter what side

of the fence you were on, Republican or Democrat,

it didn't matter.

And for people to pretend like nothing happened...

it really, really angers me.

Hats and shirts, ten bucks!

That day, I rode into work and there were a lot of people

already out at like 6:30, 7:00 in the morning,

converging on downtown.

MPD's role, it's unique in our city.

There are different entities that work together in order

to provide safety and security in our city.

You have the United States Secret Service

who has responsibility for the White House itself.

You have the United States Capitol Police

that are responsible for the Capitol,

and the Metropolitan Police Department

is responsible for all of the rest of the city

where people eat, live, work everyday in our city.

Go Trump!

USA, USA!

Come and get your Trump hats.

Here it is folks!

Good morning, everyone.

With all the rhetoric that was happening

leading up to January 6th, we expected something big.

Certainly, there was a lot of internet chatter and you know,

intelligence information going back and forth that said

a whole bunch of different things.

We had requested support from other law enforcement agencies,

and we requested the services of the National Guard

from the Secretary of the Army to assist us in managing traffic

so that police officers would not be tied up

dealing with traffic control.

But there was a lot of back and forth

and a lot of discussion about optics.

And even once they got approval, I was told the National Guard

could not move East of 9th Street without the approval

of the Secretary of the Army.

And quite frankly, I was a little shocked.

We would need approval at that level of government to move

personnel, you know, a few blocks over from where they are.

I mean that is, that's like, like huge, right?

That never happens.

I'd been documenting protests and marches for over a year

at that point, it seems like.

I started going to Trump rallies

because Trump is a part of the story.

As a photographer, what was very significant to me

are the people and the people that were there to attend

the rally.

Part of the reason I do what I do when it comes

to these protests is document, you know, the both sides.

I mean, here's this young Black wearing a fucking

Make America Great Again red cap.

I couldn't believe it.

What the fuck are you doing? What are you doing here?

Why, ugh.

Why am I here? Man, I'm here for President Trump.

I'm here put that energy in a bucket, man, like...

You start talking to these MAGA people, and you just become

fascinated with their values

and their thought process

and why they believe what they believe.

...understand and know that this is a cause

must also understand that it is a righteous cause.

This is where I knew, and I was like, "Ah, shit,

we got the Confederate flag out this bad boy?"

Fucking crazy.

It's the first time I've ever seen a Confederate flag in person.

I've never seen one in my life right before my eyes.

No.

This is the first time, Washington, DC,

January 6th, 2021.

I thought, you might need to definitely more than usual,

keep your head on a swivel.

I follow the news. I'm aware of the political climate

in this country and how divisive things

have been in recent times.

So, I'd absolutely understand when communities of color feel

feel like they've been mistreated by law enforcement

because there is absolutely a history of that in this country.

And, I'm not ignorant of the past.

I am not ignorant of the present.

With that said, in 2020, we would work 18 hours a day

with no days off for like a month at least,

and from a law enforcement perspective,

that was the backdrop for January 6th.

That day, we're posted along Constitution Avenue.

The thing that really stood out were those who were wearing

ballistic vests, helmets, goggles, fire gloves,

backpacks packed full of who knows what,

that was concerning obviously but that in it of itself isn't

something that we can stop people for.

Keep it going, come on, keep the march going.

You've got a great march going here, come on.

At one point, some people with tact gear came up

to one of my colleagues

and said, "Is this all the police officers you have?"

And my colleague looked down at him, and was just confused,

like, uh, didn't know how to respond.

And then the guy also said, "Do you really think you could stop us?

So that was rather ominous.

So, I'm checking out the landscape of the city.

- Whose streets? - Our streets!

- Whose streets? - Our streets!

I'm in the car, and there were a group of individuals

marching in formation, which is what caught my attention.

They were walking towards the US Capitol.

And I took a picture of that.

Where's Antifa?

Where's Antifa?

Where's Antifa?

Some of them were wearing orange skull caps,

and they had, like, these ballistic vests on.

Obviously, I'm thinking about, you know, some type of training,

prior law enforcement, potentially military, potentially.

I'm thinking about all those things.

And I reached out to our Homeland Security Chief

and I said, "Hey, I just noticed this.

We need to make sure that we're communicating with Capitol,

that this is coming their way."

Fuck Antifa!

Fuck Antifa!

Fuck Antifa!

I said let me go see how many people are really

at this damn thing.

Got all the way up, went up this riser and then it was like,

holy shit.

This is thousands of people.

Thousands.

When I saw that, I was like, goddamn.

There's definitely going to be some agitators

amongst a crowd of this size.

Trump! Trump! Trump!

Whooooo!

The media will not show the magnitude of this crowd.

These people are not going to take it any longer.

They're not going to take it any longer.

I just really want to see what they do.

I just want to see how they cover it.

I've never seen anything like it.

It'd be really great if we...

Take this now? Yep.

See ya, Mom!

Bye-bye, have a good day.

You too.

That day, I was so excited

for this certification of these votes.

I had never experienced that, and so I drove to work

really excited, I got all dressed up.

I've always worked in spaces that are meant to advocate

or uplift the Black community.

And when Donald Trump became president, it was,

it was a challenging time, to say the least.

Um, so it felt like it was a new day, you know?

Joe Biden campaigned on a message of unity,

and it was something that we had not heard in a few years,

so I was really, really, really excited

to see what the future held.

I remember driving down North Capitol Street,

passing Lincoln's cottage and the Rock Creek Cemetery,

which is acres of tombstones.

My whole life, I've thought a lot about Abraham Lincoln.

That day, I thought about Lincoln

losing his son in 1862

near the beginning of the Civil War,

and not being able to properly grieve for his son

and being pulled immediately into all of

the military planning and everything.

I want to thank all of you for coming

and sharing our grief.

Sharing our joy also, about the life of Tommy.

I've lost something so fundamental,

so elemental in my life I am not sure at times

that I even recognize the world.

Uh, my son Tommy had taken his life on December 31st, 2020,

um, after...

um...

a long seesaw battle with depression.

This was obviously an overwhelming trauma

and catastrophe in the life of our family.

We had his graveside service, on January 5th.

The next day, January 6th...

was the day constitutionally assigned for

Congress to meet in joint session

to receive the Electoral College votes.

The Speaker called to ask if I could come in,

and I told her that I could come

because the Democrats had an extremely narrow majority,

and of course I was miserable

and I was grieving, but the truth is that I knew that Tommy

would be in my heart, he would be in my chest.

I felt him there from the beginning,

and I knew that he would want me to be hanging tough.

That became a governing logic for me

in everything that was to come.

Our youngest daughter, Tabitha, decided to come with me,

and so did my son-in-law, Hank,

who's married to our daughter Hannah.

We looked out the window and we could see these streams

of protestors coming towards the Capitol.

I just had never seen that before.

Where's Antifa?

Where's Antifa?

Where's Antifa?

My assumption was that the Capitol police were well prepared,

much like the Metropolitan Police Department.

What I saw that was concerning to me

is that there were not very many

Capitol police officers there at the, at the bike rack.

And this was really the first point where they

had to confront some of the protestors.

And I'm not exactly sure strategically

why they were deployed that way.

USA. USA. USA. USA.

They breached the area here.

Holy shit, guys.

Holy shit, holy shit.

Let's go!!

If that had been defended differently, you know--

I can Monday-morning quarterback it, but you know,

what if there were enough people there

when that initial group came there?

You know, would things have been different?

We looked out the window and Tabitha said,

"Are the police gonna be able to stop all these people?"

And I said, "Yeah, it'll be safe, it's the Capitol."

We saw the protestors were getting closer to the building,

but I didn't take it seriously because I thought the Capitol

was one of the safest buildings in the world.

This is our house!

We had been hearing chatter of a potential protest,

but that wasn't out of the ordinary,

so I just figured, you know, that's what comes with the territory of the day.

USA! USA!

I did feel more nervous about it,

but the Capitol police felt like they were ready, they were on top of it,

so I gave Tabitha and Hank a kiss goodbye,

I said, "I'll see you out at the floor," you know,

"I'll be able to look up at you in the gallery."

Rhonda, we're also seeing Senators gather

and prepare to walk over to the House Chamber.

We were preparing for there to be a convening

of the full body of Congress to certify these votes.

I was really excited just, just to be there.

And I remember House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

doing his various press interviews and taking kind of a selfie

of myself with the Congressman, as I do.

I was recording the Senators walking over

and posting it to Instagram, and I think I said something like,

"Let the certification begin," or something cheesy like that.

Madam Speaker, members of Congress,

pursuant to the Constitution and the laws of the United States...

On the House floor, they passed out the memo

from Vice President Pence

saying that he was not going

to assert unilateral powers

to reject Electoral College votes from the states.

That memo told you precisely

what Trump was trying to get him to do,

and he explained why he couldn't do it

and why it was not consistent with the Constitution.

So, I breathed a sigh of relief because that was good news.

After ascertainment has been had

that the certificates are authentic and correct in form,

the tellers will count and make a list of the votes...

A lot of us went into the Congressman's office because

the Congressman was on the House floor

dealing with the certification by then.

Outside of the Congressmen's window,

we could see the protestors were getting closer,

and it just seemed like they were getting closer and closer.

But even then, I was just like, "That's closer than usual,

but you know, Capitol police will be fine."

Our house!

USA! USA!

USA! USA! USA!

USA! USA!

Let's go, let's go.

While that first wave of people breached the West Side of the Capitol,

we get the call that we have a suspicious package,

one at the RNC, another suspicious package at the DNC.

And these things turned out to be, like, real pipe bombs.

We the people! We the people!

And almost simultaneously,

we also get the call as the Metropolitan Police Department

to come in to assist with what's going on at the Capitol.

And this is local law enforcement coming to the aid of the federal government.

We don't do that in the Metropolitan Police Department.

It's not our area of responsibility.

We were broken up into three squads,

and I remember we're getting ready for the day,

and we're like it's just going to be a normal day,

you know they just needed more manpower just in case.

And within seconds, the radio goes off.

And everything just changed.

The mood that we were just in 30 seconds ago was, was gone.

USA! USA! USA! USA!

The scene was so chaotic on the West front of the Capitol

that the US Capitol police

requested the services of the National Guard.

Every minute was precious, as far as I'm concerned.

We got what's happening at the Capitol.

We got pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC-- real pipe bombs.

We got members deployed there, and we still have this

large group of people that have not even stepped off

from the Ellipse to make their way towards the Capitol.

Right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol!

The kind of pride and boldness that they need

to take back our country.

So, let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I want to thank you all,

God bless you and God bless America.

Thank you all for being here.

This is incredible. Thank you very much.

Whooooo!

1776! 1776!

After the President finished his speech,

there was just like, you know,

wave after wave after wave of people,

who didn't even have a barricade to walk by at this point.

I mean, it's just a mob of people.

On the way to the Capitol building--

- Whose flag? - Our flag!

Whose streets? Our streets!

- Yeah! - God Bless America, baby!

MEL How you feeling, Nate?

Oh, I'm feeling ready, bro. Readier than ever.

They're evacuating the building.

Occupy the Capitol. Our building.

They're evacuating the building.

Nobody else's building.

It's ours...

♪ ...marching on ♪

♪ Glory, glory hallelujah ♪

Then, once I got to the Capitol, the "oh shit" moment

really happened where you're like, fuck!

We live for freedom!

Come see it.

Come see these people take this house back.

Come see it.

This looks like some shit out of a crazy-ass movie set.

This is democracy!

This is what you get with rule of the mob!

I get up to this structure, and I just hear people saying,

"Everyone gotta get off, it's too many people,

this is gonna collapse."

Stop the steal!

Where are people gonna go?

Are people actually gonna go in the fucking building?

Like what the hell is happening?

Where are the police?

We want Trump!

We want Trump!

We're at the gate, we're coming through

this motherfucker tonight.

We're at the door.

We're right here, we're coming in.

We're not stopping, goddamnit!

This is our house motherfuckers!

USA!

DC 42, disregard Constitution.

...will respond over there.

We received the order to go to the Capitol,

and we were putting on our gear when eventually our sergeant

said, "All right, that's enough, whatever you got on is gonna be it.

It's time to move."

So, we all got in the van and started driving.

I was racing faster than I've ever driven a police car

in my life to get down there.

When we got out of the car, there were thousands

and thousands of people.

There was no orders at that point.

There was too much going on to have any type of orders,

and I did not think that we were going to be able

to get through the crowd.

I didn't think they would allow us to get through.

This is our 1776.

We need to continue to storm this Capitol.

Do not let police through, they are traitors.

There were so many people.

They had us comically outnumbered.

One guy asked me, "Are you my brother?"

It took me a second to process what he was asking me.

"Do you actually think I want to overthrow the government with you?"

If it was just the couple hundred that committed

the extreme acts of violence, we coulda handled that.

It's the thousands and thousands of people backing them up.

It was the crowd that was the weapon.

I'm seeing objects being flown at us,

screaming at other officers to duck

because they're about to get hit with a brick.

They started attacking us.

One guy tried to grab my baton.

I was taking blows from all sides.

I felt something heavy come down into my head.

Eventually I went to the ground,

and the guy I was wrestling with kicked me in the chest.

The medical mask I was wearing at the time had actually

gotten pulled up over my eyes, so when I was on the ground

on all fours I was also blind, and I was afraid I was just

about to get dogpiled and destroyed.

I lost my radio, my baton,

uh, I can't remember now, but a few other pieces of equipment.

You couldn't defend yourself and your gear at the same time,

so you just had to let it go.

When I, thankfully got back up on my feet,

I led my platoon through the crowd

until we got to the terrace proper,

and we joined Capitol police and the rest of MPD there.

You couldn't get any closer to the Capitol at that point

without going inside, honestly.

So, I knew at that point that it was imperative

that we keep them out.

Fuck you!

Fuck you!

You're a fucking scumbag! Scumbag!

You're all fucking scumbags!

You swore a fucking oath to this country!

That's me right there.

Once I got to the Capitol, as I walk down the steps

to the West Front, on this white marble

you're seeing police officers' gear, blood,

anything and everything that you can think of that would happen

in a fight, it was happening right there on the West Front.

Well, fuck you guys! You can't call yourselves Americans!

You broke your fucking oath today!

1776, man!

When we go through our training, we are required to get sprayed

with OC, which is pepper spray, so we know how we react,

we know how our body reacts.

It was not fun.

It lasts for about 45 minutes before you can see again,

you feel better again.

Bear mace--

compared to that, OC is, like, on level 10.

I was just blinded.

You okay?

I just can't open my eyes.

Okay, need some more water?

Oh, my God.

I know. You're blinded, right?

They're throwing shit, so I'm just going to put this on top of your head.

Alright.

Just in case. Alright.

I don't want you to get hit.

You're just hopeless and helpless at that point.

Can I get more water? Yeah.

I'm representing our president.

He won this election.

This was stolen from us, and a million people

are standing in front of the Capitol, and we know it.

Are there any objections to counting the certificate

of vote from the state of Arizona?

We began the counting of Electoral College votes,

and Arizona was the first one where there were objections.

Is the objection in writing and signed by a Senator?

- Yes, it is. - It is.

Something like 50 or 60 Republicans got up to object.

And at that point, the joint session immediately breaks,

and the House and the Senate resolve into

our separate chambers to debate the challenges.

I look back up in the gallery to see that Tabitha and Hank were there.

And then it was my turn to get up,

my basic point was going to be that the election is over.

It's not our job to vote for the person we want to be President;

it's our job to certify the votes that have come in from the governors.

That's what the job is.

But before getting into it, I took a second

just to thank the Speaker and all of the Members

for their condolences.

The gentleman is recognized without objection for five minutes.

Madam Speaker, I wanna thank you first,

and-- and all my dear, beloved colleagues for your love

and tenderness, which my family

and I will never forget.

And then, there was this huge standing ovation...

It was jarring and disorienting for me

because I could kind of see

them looking at me,

or into me as

a person embodying tragedy at that point.

It was really a lovely, wonderful gesture,

but I'm not sure I totally understood it.

But then I started thinking, in my kind of sleepless,

disjointed way, "Well, maybe everyone's love of Tommy,

or sympathy for our family, would lead to an end

of all of this fighting over the election."

Maybe they would withdraw the Stop the Steal campaign,

and they would stop telling the Big Lie.

It was obviously a completely irrational thought,

but that's what passed through my mind right there,

because there was this huge outpouring of emotion

in this standing ovation.

And then it was over, and then I launched into my real speech.

Thank you again.

Abraham Lincoln, whose name is a comfort to us all,

said we've got the best government...

So still at that point, we had no reason to think

that there was medieval-style fighting breaking out outside.

We were ready in the way you'd be ready in a courtroom

or a classroom, but we weren't ready

in the way we should've been for what was about to take place.

Take their guns! Take their guns!

Robert Glover, who's now the Commander

of our Special Operations Division,

I heard some things in his voice that I've never heard before.

Pull them! Pull them this way!

Commander Glover, you know,

he knew that we were losing ground,

and he had no problem letting us know,

"We're losing ground, we need to back up."

Because we were outnumbered.

We were outnumbered.

It was such a wide line of people going back for--

this is an exaggeration, but for miles--

you know, that's how it felt.

What are you going to do when we defend our Constitution

with the Second Amendment?

What are you going to do then?

All people must leave the area immediately.

If you don't follow this order, it may subject you to arrest.

These police officers were completely overwhelmed by

the thousands of people that were next to me, behind me,

around me.

There were definitely ex-military personnel.

Ex-police.

There were people that knew what they were doing,

knew how to lead people, and if I step back,

I can start hearing people say that, you know,

they are going in.

This is, you know, "We are going to go inside,

Donald Trump is meeting us here, and if you don't let us in,

we're going to fuck some shit up."

Right now, the people in the Capitol are sheltering in place.

We have the Capitol.

There's just so much that's going on.

And from a command standpoint-- a Chief of Police standpoint--

I need to be in a position where I can command

what's happening for the entire city,

and the mayor needs to know

exactly what's going on at that point.

And I told her that I would meet her at our command center.

Now I have a view of what's happening at the Capitol.

I have a view of what's happening at the Ellipse,

I have a view of what's happening at Freedom Plaza.

I was sending everything that I had

because our democracy was under attack.

What we really needed to see were National Guardsmen

at the US Capitol.

At that point, we had a phone call

that was convened by myself,

by the Mayor of the District of Columbia,

several representatives of the DC National Guard,

the US Capitol Police Chief, where he essentially was

pleading for assistance from the National Guard.

I just simply said, "Wait a minute.

What I hear is the Chief of the Capitol Police

asking for additional resources from the National Guard

to be deployed to the US Capitol.

Chief, is that what you're saying?'

This is on a bridge call.

He said, "That is exactly what I'm saying."

Chief Sund said that.

In response to that, whoever on the other side,

from the representatives from the Defense Department,

the discussion then switched to talking about optics,

and boots on the ground, and what that would look like,

which, you know, in a crisis situation,

I don't care what it looks like. It looks like help to me.

So, I asked all who were on this call,

"Are you saying that you're not going to deploy personnel?"

"No, we're not saying that, what we are saying is that

optics, and this and that and so forth."

It was very disturbing.

This is a bad situation, we have to do the best we can

to defend this Capitol, to defend our democracy

with everything that we got.

Apparently, the National Guard were blocks away.

That makes me mad, because I don't even know-

I don't even wanna know how many officers were there

that could have helped us...

I don't even wanna know, because that will just

blow me up.

As someone who served six years in the Virginia National Guard,

I was aware of the National Guard and how they could

possibly respond.

I also knew that they take time to respond.

I don't know why anyone would've delayed that.

My officers didn't know that not only were they breaching

the West Side of the Capitol, the East Side of the Capitol

was also being breached.

USA! USA! USA!

So, they had essentially been surrounded.

It just kept getting crazier and crazier and crazier...

We're taking it!

We're storming the House!

I was saying to people, "Where are we going? What are we doing?"

It was a lot of, we, we, we, we, we to comfort them,

you know?

And it's also a way to comfort myself to like, you know,

so I can feel safer to let you know that I am not a threat.

I have cameras, but not a threat.

It's gonna be a stampede.

In my mind, I'm like, "I don't know if I'm being dramatic,

but this might turn into a stampede."

I don't know if we can control this or contain it.

I remember watching as police officers were clearly exhausted.

It started to look abnormal.

And then there was like a beeping in the office.

I guess there's some sort of security device in the office

that I never knew existed.

Then we started getting directives from

our chief of staff, from the office manager.

She told me to wear flats,

and she told me to pack up my bags.

Person outside has attempted to enter on the Senate side

of the building.

We had a television in the office, we also had windows,

so we could see that they were clearly, you know,

closing in on us.

But despite the beeping, despite huddling

in the Congressman's office, nothing made it real

until those people actually got inside.

I first got a text from a friend in California saying,

"Are you okay? Is everything alright?"

And I said, "Yes, what do you mean?"

And she said, "There's a breach in the Capitol.

There's violence outside."

And I looked around the room and I noticed that

lots of people were getting messages

and people were beginning to talk.

Within a couple of minutes, Speaker Pelosi's security detail

escorted her off of the floor.

Some people on our side of the aisle began to scream,

"This is because of you, this is what you wanted."

I immediately looked back up into the gallery.

Tabitha and Hank were no longer there.

Oh, Nancy!

Where are you, Nancy?

Our office was right above Nancy Pelosi's office,

the Speaker of the House.

Three of my colleagues went out, and our staff assistant

said she came face to face with one of the insurrectionists.

We were in the room, and she was banging on the door,

and she said, "They're inside.

They're inside. Let me in!"

They were extremely rattled.

And they said that we needed to stay here.

Like we cannot leave.

That was, I think the turning point for me.

I called Julie, my Chief of Staff,

and she said they were back in Steny's office.

They had locked the door.

She said they had pushed all the furniture up against the door.

The kids were hiding under,

uh, a desk.

And I learned later that Julie had taken the-- the fire pick

outta the fireplace and was wielding it as-- as a weapon.

And I told her to protect them with her life.

This is our fucking house.

Our house.

I heard the elevator open,

and I heard them come up the stairwell,

and so we decided to stay in place,

turn the lights out and to just be as quiet as possible

and to barricade the doors.

I had to assume the worst.

I had to assume these people were armed.

You kind of go into survival mode,

like I remember essentially casing the office, like,

"What can I use as a weapon?"

I remember feeling like

whatever is in here that is heavy is what I'll have to use,

you know, if it comes to that.

We want Trump! We want Trump!

Fuck you, you fuckin' tyrants!

Whenever I see footage from that day, it makes my heart race.

You know, I can feel blood-- my blood pressure shoot up,

and it makes me angry.

Lay down your weapons!

Those weapons belong to us!

That helmet, 4-5-1-8, belongs to me!

Give me my helmet! Give me my helmet!

Now, Hodges!

D. Hodges, lay down your weapons!

4-5-1-8, give me my helmet!

I want my helmet!

Gimme my helmet!

That helmet belongs to me!

I paid for that helmet!

I paid for that vest!

I paid for your salary!

Traitor!

You're a bunch of sheep, sheep!

There was just sensory overload of threats that,

I'm scanning the crowd rather than paying attention to

what people are shouting at me because I'm constantly looking

for, uh, someone who's about to bring out a gun or a knife

or something because I know that they have them on them.

And I just have to hope that if I see that I can react before they do.

At one point I look over my shoulder and I see the officers

trying to hold them back and failing

because their numbers are overwhelming.

At that point, I see the line break, essentially.

You better run, cops!

Each officer just engages in a pitched battle

with whatever's in front of them.

People swinging things at our heads-- sticks, metal poles.

One Sergeant was hit with a cattle prod.

There was a sledgehammer.

I had someone try to gouge my eye out.

These people like to believe that they support blue lives,

but someone came up to me while I was surrounded and said,

"Things are gonna get real bad.

We need to get you out of here. What can I do to help?"

And I said, "Go home."

And he said, "Not gonna happen."

And at that point, there's not much left to say.

Let's go, MPD double time inside.

Let's go. Let's go, MPD.

Stop fucking looking at them, let's go!

Get inside. Goddamn, let's get inside!

To be honest, I don't even remember getting inside the Capitol.

We were funneled into the Capitol at some point.

I don't know anything about this building.

I remember running up to Capitol officers, and there was

only a couple of 'em. I would say, "How do I get here and here?"

"I don't know. I don't work in this building."

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

Our house! Whose house?

There were two sets of doors in the Congressman's office,

so my colleagues on the other side of the office

barricaded one set, we barricaded the other set.

Um, and you know, there was just a lot of, you know,

I had a coworker who's a really good friend of mine,

and she was, you know, very, very pregnant.

So, you know, she couldn't do it.

Um, and we had photographers in the room.

Some of them were taking pictures instead of helping.

And I remember being really, really annoyed with them

at the time, 'cause I was like, you know,

"This is not the time for your Pulitzer.

Like, this is life or death."

And I mean, in hindsight, I guess it's,

it's good that it was documented.

But in the moment, we are possibly, you know,

fighting for our lives.

We don't know what's on the other side of that door.

I vividly remember hearing someone say,

"They're hiding from us," and like kind of laughing.

It felt as if they were like taunting us, like, you know,

"Hello, anybody in here?"

And they were just banging, banging, banging on the door.

And every time they would bang on the door...

Um, you think you're over it, and then you're not.

Um, I just remember every time they banged on the door,

um, you know,

we would all just run up and push the door--

I mean, push the-- the table against the door.

Um, and those were the most terrifying times.

Hey guys, hey hey!

USA! USA! USA!

USA! USA! USA!

We need people.

At some point, I finally make it into the tunnel.

Push!

There was no order to go in there.

I didn't hear about any level of importance

because I didn't have my radio at that point.

It was just where the fight was, and I knew I needed to go to it.

Now, myself, these officers that I'm with,

we're essentially trapped in the Capitol

because you have these thousands of people

that are now aggressively trying to get in.

It felt like a, for-real riot, like pushing back.

Felt like it was organized

and people knew what they were doing.

You just don't go, you know, there with tactical gear on

and looking like you're military personnel

without knowing what you were doing.

Supply lines coming through.

Keep in mind, we have the vice president

and other members of Congress in the building.

And if the building is surrounded

and a person or group of people access the tunnel,

it puts the leaders of our democracy in a very,

very, very bad situation.

We were all just pushing the table against the door

with all our might.

How do we know that we're not running to the door

and they're not about to, like, shoot a bullet through.

We had literally no idea.

The news started to spread.

And I just remember getting message

after message after message asking, you know, if I was okay.

And I remember saying to each person, just please pray.

Meantime on the floor,

it was total chaos and bedlam by then.

There was this extraordinary pounding,

barreling sound coming at the center door

of the House of Representatives.

Everybody stay down.

I'll never forget that sound. It was really haunting.

Just the sound of basically a mob,

trying to barrel its way in, smashing up against the door.

And people began to run towards the door.

Then some Capitol officers came in with their guns

and told all of us to get back.

And they stood by the door with their guns drawn.

Everybody was imagining that somebody was gonna come in

with an AR 15, that there would be a mass shooting

and that it would be focused on

the Democratic side of the aisle

and the Democratic galleries.

So, they were telling us all to take off our pins.

These are the little pins that get us into the buildings.

And they're telling us, take your pins off.

It makes you recognizable.

And then the Democrats were saying,

get off of the Democratic side of the aisle.

USA. USA. USA. USA.

USA. USA.

Meantime, we were all being shepherded towards the front.

And we got up to the Speaker's lobby and we went to the right.

To the left is where there were a handful of officers.

And then the mob was on the other side of the doors there.

Let me in!

That's, um...

that's where one of the protesters got killed.

Break that down!

Break it down. Break that!

Let's go.

That sound like a fucking gun shot.

Oh, shit.

Oh, my God, a woman has been shot.

Where's she hit?

Back Up. Back up.

Yo medic, where's she hit?

We can't save her.

Get the fuck back. We can't save her!

You guys gotta calm down.

We got blood on the floor.

There's blood on the floor of our fucking...

Report of one shot in the Capitol.

Report of a shooting in the Capitol,

trying to ascertain information now.

Capitol command of recon, report of one shot.

Capitol command of recon, is this gonna be

an active shooter event, or is this just one shot?

I need more information.

This will be a report of one shot.

Unknown about the victim or the location.

We just didn't know.

We were trying to get confirmation.

Is anyone shot in the Capitol?

Were those shots fired? Were they some type of incendiary device?

We don't know. Was it just a distraction

to kind of get us in a different area?

We did not know.

And I think that was probably the scariest thing, not knowing.

We the people! We the people!

This is...

It makes you seek answers. So, what do I do?

Of course, I'm talking to people.

I interview people right then, right on the steps.

You know, right there.

Yeah... look at 'em.

And you know, I met this woman, we were probably 10 feet away

from, you know, where people were trying to get in.

She sounded so fucking nice and so sweet.

And she was so polite.

You okay, baby? Yeah. I'm good.

I'm prepared to die. Huh?

Yes, I'm prepared to die. Wait a second.

For my country, and my children and my grandchildren, all day.

You're saying you're prepared to die today?

Yes, I love America.

And I was like, what?

You prepared to die?

I could not fucking believe

what the fuck I was seeing and hearing.

I felt embarrassed, you know,

for all of us, you know,

for all of America, you know, to hear what I was hearing,

to see what I was seeing, to document what I was documenting.

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

We were all scared.

The manpower we had inside the tunnel that day,

which seemed like a lot, wasn't enough.

It was about maybe four or five-ish people could fit in there wide.

And it was a few dozen officers in there

trying to hold back the crowd outside.

You could see officers who were

getting injured at the front, falling out, coming to the back.

The boiler room in the Capitol became our decon room.

There were so many officers that had their hands on their knees

because they couldn't see because they're shut down

from the chemicals that were just used against them.

And as those officers fell back, we would move forward

and continue moving forward

until it was your turn at the front, essentially.

It felt like war.

I'm seeing scenes unfold

all around me.

This is our country!

This is our country!

Yeah!

I'm seeing anxiety.

I'm seeing sadness.

I'm seeing pain.

You know...

twice when I was there, you know,

I felt the emotion to cry.

And quite frankly, probably I didn't stop myself.

Some shit distracted me from that emotion.

It's like, Oh, shit, there's a hockey stick.

Oh, shit, where the fuck did they get a ladder from?

Oh, shit, what is this tubing?

Where the hell did that come from?

The guy's head is all red from pepper spray

and looks like he can't breathe.

Oh, shit, I'm getting soaked up by the gas,

and I can't fucking breathe,

and this shit hurts my eyes.

And why are people keep returning

back to the front lines to do it over and over again?

What is, what are they thinking?

I knew that this had to be the biggest news story

in the world right now,

the United States Capitol being under siege.

So, someone had to be trying to get us help somewhere.

I was thinking, you know,

I hope I can hold on until reinforcements gets here.

Our house! Our house!

We went down some stairwells,

and they tried to keep us together,

and we were running for safety.

All that shit...!

At that point, I was most concerned for Tabitha,

Hank, and Julie and wanting to make sure

that they would get outta that room, which was still where the mob was.

USA! USA! USA!

And I just kept doing the same thing over and over again,

calling the Capitol police, calling Julie.

I was obviously profoundly concerned for them.

I just wanted to make sure they were in touch

so they knew who to open the door for and who not to.

These people had made it clear that they wanted

to kill certain members of Congress.

And even if they got one person,

that would change the balance of power.

So, you know,

I was definitely motivated to--

to win the fight.

I found myself at the front of the line in the tunnel...

and I braced myself against the doorframe

so that any backward force I experienced

wasn't pushed on the officers behind me,

but rather against the frame of the building itself.

Unfortunately, it backfired on me.

My arms were trapped.

I was essentially standing up straight,

unable to defend myself and at their mercy.

The man to my front, I remember

him just screaming at me

and, like, spit or some kind of foam

coming out of his mouth.

It sounds, like, made up, but that's what I remember.

He also was able to wrestle away my baton

and beat me in the head with it.

I could taste blood coming out of my mouth.

Heave ho! Heave ho!

Heave ho! Heave ho!

I could feel just starting to lose all of my perception,

and I was worried that I would fall out there

and become a liability to my colleagues and then, you know,

eventually be dragged out and killed.

Um...

I remember someone just chanting, "Fight for Trump.

Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump."

Thankfully, the other officers behind me heard me

and were able to create enough space to get me out of there.

Everyone who worked that day was injured.

Everyone was attacked.

Sometimes at great personal cost.

The difference between your typical angry riot

versus this was, this was...

it was personal.

And they were not stopping.

I wanna go home, and I want every single officer that's here to go home.

And my job right now,

their job right now is to figure out a way to make that happen.

They fought like hell, for hours.

That's not training that police officers normally get.

Maybe the military, they're trained for war,

fighting for hours, days, months on end.

The fight that these officers had in them,

even when they were injured, to see them injured

and then get back into the fight.

The fight wasn't over yet, and the fight needed everybody

that was able. And I'm not dead yet.

Uh, I was still, uh, still in the fight.

Freedom, freedom, freedom.

It was like complete chaos all around me.

I'm seeing one of the darkest days

in modern history.

I was scared for my fucking life,

but all I can think about is

making sure that I document

what's going on to the best of my abilities.

Back up.

When I captured this image

and saw the police officer that I now know

to be Michael Fanone,

get pulled down

from where he was trying to stop the mob

of MAGA people from getting inside...

I'm like reliving it in my brain right now.

Like, I have all of the frames just going in my head.

The look on this man's face was,

"I am about to fucking die."

You don't see police officers look like that very often.

Police officers are stoic, proud, in control.

This officer was not in control of a motherfucking thing.

If they wanted to kill him, they would've killed him.

The man pleaded for his life, told people he has kids.

Well, I'm thinking like, holy shit, this man is about to die.

And here I am about to capture this shit.

It's kind of crazy 'cause if I had to put, you know,

a dollar on it, I would say everyone there is, "Blue Lives Matter,

Blue Lives Matter."

They didn't fucking matter that day.

I felt for him.

I have a son.

I thought about what it would feel like for him

if some shit happened to me.

You know, that's another human being.

Are there times that I don't feel bad for cops?

Fucking right.

Derek Chauvin could kiss my black ass, straight up.

That could be fucking me. That coulda been any of us.

Like, I'm pissed off right now, just by talking about, you know,

the, what happened to George Floyd.

And what's happened to many,

many other people that have died

in the hands of police.

You know, it's,

I feel like if you weren't angry about what happened...

...to George Floyd on that fucking day,

you're not a fucking human.

You lack everything that it takes to be a human being.

If that shit didn't piss you the fuck off.

America has been rearing its ugly fucking head

for many fucking years over and over and over again.

And I'm documenting it all.

All I can do is get these photos out

and show the world you know, what I saw.

This is real-life America.

So, yeah, I felt for him, I felt for...

...us. I felt for Americans.

I felt for, you know, this world,

this is what it's come to.

Pull. Pull. Pull.

I came for fucking war, man.

We have a national, international, crisis

unfolding right here in the nation's Capitol.

The gravity and the weight of that is huge.

Knowing that the eyes of the world

are literally watching our democracy crumble.

At this hour,

our democracy is under unprecedented assault,

unlike anything we've seen in modern times.

An assault in the citadel of Liberty, the Capitol itself.

An assault on the people's representatives

and the Capitol Hill police sworn to protect them.

We had an election that was stolen from us.

It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it.

But we can't play into the hands of these people.

We have to have peace.

So go home.

We love you.

You're very special.

You've seen what happens, you see the way others

are treated that are so bad and so evil.

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"

'Cause...

How could anyone be proud of what they were doing?

Even if you don't agree with the election,

how could you be proud of that?

You've tried to storm the fucking

United States Capitol building--

not try to storm-- you did, you got in.

And people died.

When I began to see the magnitude of the violence

that was taking place, I just grew more and more,

I don't wanna say hysterical, but more and more agitated

about Tabitha and Hank not being with us.

I was aware of not wanting to create surplus fear

and anxiety on their part, but I was pretty angry.

USA. USA. USA.

USA. USA. USA.

We just sat there in silence.

I remember thinking a lot about my mom.

You know, I think,

well, you know,

my mom lives with me, she has Alzheimers.

And I didn't necessarily want to get in contact with her

because I didn't want her to worry,

I just wanted to be there.

You know?

I think that's what I thought about the most.

At the end of the day, I'm kind of all she has.

So...

Stop the steal, stop the steal, stop the steal.

USA. USA. USA.

We reached out far and wide as we could

to get people here to support us.

So, whether the National Guard showed up, didn't showed up,

whatever the case may be, there were police officers

that we were calling on from all around this area to assist.

We love you, President Trump.

Traitors!

Traitors!

My God. Oh, my fucking God.

When I saw that manpower coming with the munitions

that we needed to handle the-- this crowd, that was...

"Okay, we're gonna get through this."

Normally, it's the federal government

that's coming to the aid of local law enforcement,

local jurisdictions.

That day, local jurisdictions

came to support the federal government.

Some of them are MPD officers,

some of 'em are Virginia State Police.

You start seeing them push the crowd back.

They're coming down the West Front of the Capitol.

I, I remember having a sense of like,

like, we taking it back.

We kept hearing those knocks.

One time, it was just such a violent shaking of the door.

And that's when they, they just kicked it in...

and their guns drawn.

That was by far the scariest moment of my life

'cause I did not know who kicked the door in,

and I saw all those guns.

And we just had our hands up, and we had our hands up for a long time.

You know, it's not a good feeling having to walk around

the halls of Congress with your hands up past insurrectionists

who actually should have their hands up.

You know, that's not a good feeling.

I will never forget,

in front of Congressman Steny Hoyer's office,

there was a poster of John Lewis that referenced, you know,

getting in good trouble,

and the poster was ripped to shreds.

I just remember how hateful that was,

to come in and rip up the poster the way they did

and to just desecrate the Capitol the way they did.

And I remember also walking past

one of the insurrectionists that they had handcuffed.

And I just remember looking at him, and he laughed.

You know, it was... it was funny to him.

It was unnerving.

Finally, Tabitha and Hank and Julie

were brought over to us by the officers,

and it was tearful.

I was racked with a lot of guilt.

I got someone who works with me on my staff to drive them home.

Before they left, I gave them a big hug, and it was again,

really emotional. And I... said I was sorry.

And I said to Tabitha, "The next time you come back

to the Capitol, it's not gonna be like this."

And then she said, "I don't want to come back to the Capitol."

And it just... it just rocked me.

I turned the ISO up on my camera,

and I had this dark photo of this flag waving

and smoke, this tear gas is coming down,

and there's hardly any more people at the top.

It just was weirdly over.

So, earlier there was a lot of people out here,

and I guess it's thinned out a little bit.

Oh, so somebody got a souvenir.

Jesus.

You know, I walked two blocks,

called a Uber.

I just remember looking at who my driver was gonna be,

and I was so relieved that this driver was a Black man...

because I really honestly couldn't deal

with any more white folks that day.

I couldn't, I was just over it.

I needed that at that moment.

I needed someone that I could relate to,

that was on the same wavelength as me,

that was the same... that was a brother.

Like, I needed to tell that Black man,

like, what I just went through.

Then I went up to the room

and, um, almost started crying.

I almost started, and I stopped myself

and I was like, "Alright, well, I got fucking work to do.

Let's not go through this emotional shit right now.

You gotta fucking just focus

and get this job done."

And I'm thinking about my boy who's over there.

You know, it's like I'm trying to fucking make it home

and get the fuck up out of here so I can see my son.

Eventually, the fatigue of the day caught up with me,

and when I saw that I could take a break,

I went back inside and sat down.

I found out later on I had a large contusion underneath my hair.

Then I had a headache for about two weeks.

So, I likely had a concussion.

If I had taken another blow like that,

especially in the same place, that very easily could have

caused serious brain damage or been fatal.

Our cops ended up with broken jaws, broken necks,

broken arms, legs, fingers.

One officer lost three fingers.

People had traumatic brain injury,

dozens and dozens ending up with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

It was just hard to believe that this was going on in America.

And it was going on, you know, downstairs from where we were,

and Donald Trump wasn't doing anything to stop it.

And the National Guard was just absent...

and we were dumbfounded.

Congressman Raskin is joining us now.

Congressman, obviously you can't share everything with us,

but what have you learned about what comes next?

I don't know, but I'll tell you this but every single member

that I've spoken to is absolutely determined to have us complete

the counting of the Electoral College votes,

and, uh, American constitutional democracy will prevail.

Nobody ever said it would be easy.

But healing begins with the truth.

I mean, there was an effort almost instantly to bury

and rewrite the history of what happened on January 6th.

You don't almost knock over the government of the United States

by accident.

It's not an impulse move.

This was an organized attack on the government.

if you allow for there to be confusion,

propaganda and disinformation about it.

Then that's very dangerous because it conditions

the society to accept it

and licenses political violence in the future.

It was a traumatic experience,

probably the most traumatic event that I've dealt with.

But, for me, it's more of losing trust in people.

You're talking about thousands and thousands of people

that were willing to hurt us to get what they want...

but then the next day, probably go back to

respecting law enforcement, right?

How does that work? How does that make sense?

How am I supposed to respect that and trust you?

It was embarrassing, to see what I was seeing,

you know, to be an American.

The type of things

that happened that day, you know,

theoretically are not supposed to happen

in this country.

We're America, the greatest country in the world.

My photos are showing you things that you already know.

It's not really exposing anything,

it's just showing you what's real.

Hopefully, you know, the photos help make life better for...

Like, hopefully, my son doesn't have to have a movement.

Be a part of a movement like what I've been a part of,

or what my parents have been a part of in the '60s.

But chances are, he will be

because that's the way the world works, you know.

The world is not perfect

and it can be fucked up sometimes.

A violent insurrection to overturn the election

is not an abstract thing, as we've heard.

Hundreds of people were bloodied,

injured, and wounded in the process,

including more than 150 police officers,

some of them sitting in this room today.

It's a dark day for America.

The Confederate flag was inside the United States Capitol,

the flag of traitors, and I say that as someone

born below the Mason-Dixon line, who loves the South.

White supremacists rummaging

through the belongings of our elected leaders.

It's hard to imagine how that could be victory, right?

But power was transferred that day peacefully.

The terrorists, very fortunate that they got to go home,

but more of them are getting arrested every day.

And, um, victory doesn't always look like

what we want it to look like, but we did win.

We won that day.

When you go through something like that, you don't really think

about the impact it had on you

until you decide to talk about it again,

and then a lot of that fear and terror

and pain comes back.

But, you know, I don't know that there's

a whole lot of use in being angry.

I think that anger should be channeled

into the work that we should continue to do.

That's why I stayed that night.

Being there, you know, in the face of terrorism

and showing them that, you know,

despite your attack on democracy, democracy prevailed.

This is not the end of the book.

It's not the last chapter of the book.

So, while I have an appreciation for being

part of this historically significant event...

I take comfort in knowing that it's not the last chapter.

I think about what's ahead.

How strong we are.

After enduring all of these things yet here I stand,

our country.

After going through all the things that we go through,

democracy still moves forward.

And our last chapter is still yet to be written.

But this is not the problem of one party,

it is the problem of the whole country now.

American democracy, Mr. Chairman,

is a precious inheritance,

something rare in the history of the world.

So, justice is part of what we're doing,

but I would say paramount is the truth.

We want to set out

a complete, detailed historical record

of what happened and why.

And we've come a long way,

but obviously the progress

can be lost also in the wink of an eye.

In a world of insurgent authoritarianism,

of racism and antisemitism, let's all hang tough for

American democracy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

So, eternal vigilance, that's the price of our liberty.

That's the price of our democracy.

We've all got to stay on the case.

It's something we take care of together.