24 Hours at the Capitol, page 15
ADAM GRAY, freelance photojournalist on assignment for the Daily Mail: I mean for me, this is more one of the most sinister parts of the day, besides the shooting: they’re smashing all the camera stuff, but especially thinking about your own safety because they’re starting to say, “Enemies of the people.” I heard someone say, “We’re going to drop a list and we’re going to hunt them down one by one.” They’re speaking about my colleagues—they could be speaking about me.
LOUIE PALU, freelance photojournalist on assignment for National Geographic: And I thought, Oh, okay, now I’m scared. I’m out of gas. I have no adrenaline. I’m like, I just want to go hide. And I just kind of walked. And I was just standing there and I think I was in a daze. And a friend of mine who was working for AP, came over and he said, “Louie, are you okay?” And I was like, kind of—I couldn’t talk.
US Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards arrested a rioter and took him to prisoner processing. Suddenly, she passed out.
OFFICER EDWARDS: I just slumped over, and I woke up in a cold sweat. And I went to the captain who was there and I said, “Something’s wrong.” I hadn’t really processed that I had been hit as badly as I thought. But, you know, he started asking me what day it was, like simple questions. I couldn’t really answer them, so he put me in an ambulance.
Back at the Capitol, reporters began leaving, too, ahead of the 6 p.m. citywide curfew.
ALAN CHIN, freelance photojournalist on assignment for Business Insider: It was almost anticlimactic. Because intellectually, you know you’ve just witnessed this unprecedented assault on the Capitol by this crowd, and specifically, I should say, by the very militant members of that crowd. And as you’re leaving, you almost feel like, Wow, okay, that’s it. Right?
Many other reporters, police officers, and witnesses say they felt the same thing: that the day could have gone much, much worse.
SGT. AQUILINO GONELL, US Capitol Police officer: We were lucky that we individually [and] collectively decided to exercise so much restraint. I knew I was justified to use lethal force. I just thought I would have made things worse. Not only for myself but for my other officers. I think it could have been a lot worse. We didn’t want to get in a bloodbath.2
DANIEL HODGES, DC Metropolitan Police officer: The reason why I didn’t shoot anyone, and I imagine why many others didn’t, [is] there were over nine thousand of the terrorists out there with an unknown number of firearms, and a couple hundred of us maybe. So, if that turned into a firefight, we would have lost, and this was a fight we couldn’t afford to lose.3
There was still some fighting as officers pushed rioters away from the building. MPD officer Jeffrey Smith—who had texted his wife earlier that “London has fallen”—was hit in the head with a metal pole.4
Some of the journalists remained on the site as well.
JANE: We stayed around for a while just to just see, because people were kind of still lingering.
I was running into colleagues, and we were checking in with each other. We were all worried about someone getting cornered or taken, so we were trying to stick together at this point.
We’re waiting for the [6 p.m.] curfew because in other places, other protests I’ve covered, the curfew is like, go-ahead for the police to just go nuts and do whatever the fuck they want.
At that point, I was quite tired. You’re basically just babysitting a situation.
And at some point, me and another person, another photographer I was with, we were able to leave. So we left together. Nobody left alone. We made sure that everybody had someone to leave with, and I’m talking about across—it doesn’t matter who you work for. We looked out for each other as fellow journalists because we were just such major targets, and people had had their lives threatened and been attacked, and so there was still a very strong fear that people could get attacked again or even killed or whatever. So we just made sure that people were okay, at least safe when they were leaving.
LOUIE PALU: I went back to [the press workspace in the] Dirksen [Senate Office Building] and the door was locked. No one was going back in. I don’t know what time it was at this—6, 6:30, I don’t know—maybe an hour of being—staring at the ground like, What the fuck just happened?
I sat on the curb at one point and just thought, What the hell happened? Like, what the fuck just happened?
And the riot was kind of coming down by now. You could hear explosions and flash bangs, screaming, weird shrieks.
I could see photographers that were kind of in different other positions, further down with their laptops on the sidewalk filing on the concrete. It seemed like a war zone there.
STEPHEN VOSS: It was a few miles’ walk to my car. So I knew it was going to take a while. There were people walking alongside me who had Trump stuff, who were clearly walking from the Capitol too. I remember this one guy walked by the Canadian embassy, which had a nice Christmas tree, and he just paused to take a picture of it. And it was just any old tourist walking through and being like, Oh, that’s really nice. This is a nice thing. And he had just been down at the Capitol.
FORT MCNAIR
5:59 P.M.
Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer spoke on the phone with Vice President Pence again. Alexandra Pelosi recorded the conversation.
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE, ON SPEAKERPHONE: I’m literally standing with the chief of police of the US Capitol Police. He just informed me that what you will hear through official channels: Paul Irving, your sergeant at arms, will inform you that their best information is that they believe that the House and the Senate will be able to reconvene in roughly an hour.
Schumer and Pelosi exchanged surprised glances.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Good news.
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: The sergeant at arms will be in touch about—about the process for, for getting members back into the building.
SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Good news.5
RICHARD, congressional staffer, back at the Capitol: I think there was a collective sigh of relief when people realized that we would be going back. On the one hand, when you go through something like that, you just want to go home and be with your loved ones. But on the other hand, there was a huge part of me that said, I want to get back over there. I want to finish this joint session, and I truly want the message to be that you didn’t win, that we did what we were supposed to do, that we completed the task that we had to do.6
At the White House, President Trump drafted a tweet.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP VIA TWITTER, 6:01 P.M.: These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!7
JANUARY 6 REPORT: At 6:27 p.m. President Trump retired to his residence for the night. As he did, he had one final comment to an employee who accompanied him to the residence. The one takeaway that the President expressed in that moment, following a horrific afternoon of violence and the worst attack against the US Capitol building in over two centuries, was this: “Mike Pence let me down.”
LOUIE PALU: I remember the ride home on my bike. It felt like it took four hours to ride home, and it was really just like a twenty-minute ride. I was like—I couldn’t even breathe. I had all that tear gas and fire extinguisher powder in my throat. I rode home, and I don’t want to reveal where I live, but I have to go up a big hill. And that hill felt like I was in the fricking Tour de France, man. I had to get off my bike a couple of times and walk my bike. I was just so fried from the day.
JANE: I remember at one point—I believe I was in my car by that point. I remember sitting there and just having this moment where I thought, You need to hold on to the clarity that you have right now about what happened today. I felt like after that day our country’s broken. I didn’t know how we could come back from something like that.
And I felt like I needed to really meditate on that truth because I just knew that there would be so many narratives spun, and people would try and make their own stories about what had happened that day. It was just like this moment where I took the time to actually really think about cementing that feeling and just saying to myself, Don’t forget this feeling. This is clarity. You have clarity on where we are as a country. This is where we are. And I knew to hold onto that.
For others, the long day was far from over. The police had to clear the Capitol building so that Congress could reconvene.
OFFICER HODGES: Eventually I went back into the building and just waited there for everybody to gather again. We all just sort of eventually found our way there and until—stayed there until, I mean, they were telling us we could have to go back out there.
OFFICER LARRY: But it wasn’t over for us. We still had to go back. I still had to go back to the Senate side where most of the members were. And we had to essentially wait until the Capitol building was cleaned up to escort all ‘em back to the Capitol so that they could finish their electoral votes.
6:48 P.M.
Speaker Pelosi finally was able to return to the Capitol.
ALEXANDRA PELOSI: I think that was the most heartbreaking experience I’ve had as a human on this Earth because I felt so sorry for my mother because people literally pooped in the Capitol.
And when we walked into our office, people had—they broke everything. Yeah, that was hard because how would you feel if someone broke into your house and just trashed everything? That’s how she feels about the Capitol. It’s like her home. It was not just an office building to her—it was the sacred ground where her father served and where she served for thirty-some years. These places are sacred to some people. I mean, you may not have any respect for the institutions, and every day that goes by, Americans don’t seem to have much respect for the institutions anymore. But my mother’s an old-school relic. She really respects democracy and the institution of Congress. And so for her, this was very personal because they had shit all over this place that she holds to be sacred. And that was tough. And then they left threatening notes—they left, “We will be back,” and all those stupid notes that they left behind on the tables and stuff.
I mean, the staff were crying. Remember, they’d been left behind, locked under a desk. They thought they were going to be killed. For the people that were left behind, the staffers that were hiding under a table, they had post-traumatic stress. A lot of ‘em left their jobs. A lot of ‘em left their jobs. I’m not sure there are any left that work in that building that were there that day, that worked for her in that capacity.
HOUSE SAFE ROOM
7 P.M.
CRAIG, congressional staffer: All of a sudden the Speaker and [House majority leader] Steny Hoyer appeared.8
SHANE SMITH, aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi: The room broke out into applause.9
CRAIG: And that was the first moment where I thought, Wow, they’re here. They’re with us. This is going to be okay. They’re here. They’re not in hiding.
I just remember the look of shock on the Speaker’s face and on Mr. Hoyer’s face too. I’ve never seen their faces like that. And this is going to sound very strange, but in that moment, I didn’t feel like it was the Speaker of the House and the Leader. I felt like we were all human for a moment.10
SHANE SMITH: Members were ready to go back to work and finish certifying an election, a mundane constitutional exercise. And then before I left, the Speaker just came over and talked to my colleagues and I and thanked us for what we do, and told us how sorry she was, that we had to go through something like this.11
RICARDO MITCHELL, Labor Division of the Architect of the Capitol:* Once they got everything under control, we had to come back in the building and clean up the mess, because the members were going to return to finish voting. We had to go into the chambers and prepare them so they would be able to come back. It was a lot of masks and a lot of broken glass, some broken furniture. They had to barricade the doors… . It was a lot of debris, you know? And we had a short time to clean it up. But we just got it done. I have a hardworking team.12
JEFF WALTERS, Architect of the Capitol carpenter: There’s not a whole lot that surprises us anymore, but seeing the overall condition of the building that night, that, I would have to say, was a bit shocking… . I’ve been with the Architect of the Capitol for maybe twenty-two, twenty-three years. So I’ve seen a lot of the things that have gone on here, but I’ve never seen the building in such disarray.13
HOUSE CHAMBER
ABOUT 7:15 P.M.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL: I was among one of the first groups to go back. So a cleaning crew was sweeping up glass as you stepped into the chamber. And then when I stepped into the chamber, I noticed two individuals wearing a blue FBI technician jacket, and they were taking photographs and conducting measurements on the House Floor… . I’ve never seen—photographs are not allowed on the House Floor, so odd. I don’t know why but that was one of the first things I remember thinking, like, You’re not allowed to take photos of the House Floor. But, of course, it had become a crime scene.14
RICHARD: We were escorted back over to the chamber at about 7:15 or 7:30. That was kind of a surreal moment when we first got onto the second floor, and there was so much law enforcement from so many different agencies. There were [US] Marshalls, there was FBI, there was ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], there was Capitol Police, there was District of Columbia [Metropolitan] police. There was Secret Service. I mean, they were everywhere. You could still smell the tear gas throughout the building. At that point, we were told you couldn’t go into the Speaker’s Lobby because it was a crime scene.15
LISA DESJARDINS, PBS NewsHour correspondent: Police finally escorted me, a few reporters, and staff back into the Capitol around 7:30 or 8 p.m. But at that point, we still couldn’t leave the building [due to the lockdown]. I gulped down some water, then I quickly ate the lunch I’d brought. I was really unhappy that I brought a very healthy lunch: hummus and carrots. I was like, Why didn’t I bring a hamburger? But at that point, I also just really wanted to get back to covering the election. I felt it was clear that the rioters wanted to stop the election, and they wanted to stop Congress from certifying it. As a reporter, I really wanted to cover Congress finishing their job and finishing the election.16
HOUSE FLOOR
8:06 P.M.
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol, but thanks to the swift efforts of US Capitol Police, federal, state and local law enforcement, the violence was quelled. The Capitol is secured, and the people’s work continues… .
Those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today … you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house… . Let’s get back to work.17
ALEXANDRA PELOSI: We went back in after all of that, and then [the Republicans] challenged [the election results] again! Oh my. That, to me, was the breaking point. That was when you knew this whole little experiment called democracy is dead. Because after everything we’ve been through, you’re still going to challenge the results? And at that point, everyone was just done, just done, just done. So, yeah, that was the worst.
NORTH CORRIDOR OF THE CAPITOL
ABOUT 10 P.M.
While the debate continued, US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick collapsed.
STEVEN SUND, chief of the US Capitol Police: [Sicknick] collapsed while walking with a group of officers to get something to eat. One of the officers in the group with him was Chris Grzelak, a Virginia state trooper and tactical medic. Grzelak immediately went to work on Brian, providing CPR and trying to resuscitate him until DC Fire and Emergency Services arrived on the scene.18
JON HOPE, firefighter, DC FEMS: We heard the radio traffic from Capitol Police that they had an officer in cardiac arrest in the north corridor in the stairwell.19
RADIO TRANSMISSION, DC FEMS: We have a medical local inside the Capitol. CPR on a Capitol Police officer.20
DAVID HOAGLAND, DC FEMS Lieutenant: Me and the rest of the crew got escorted down into the Capitol. The first time I went into the Capitol was as a three-year-old and I’ve been in there various times throughout my life, so it was kind of surreal to see it in this state after everything just happened, with trash everywhere. It smelled really bad, and there was just an absolute army of police officers everywhere and it was just—it was kind of just like after a battle. We found a downed officer.21
JON HOPE: The patient was lying on the ground on his side, had other officers around him. I asked what exactly had happened, and the other officer said they didn’t know, that he had just collapsed.22
LIEUTENANT HOAGLAND: The other officers were trying to do CPR on him, but he was actually not in cardiac arrest so we kind of pulled everybody back and then the Capitol physicians got there and we started coordinating his care while we were waiting on [the vehicles that] were initially dispatched on the run to get down there.23
TIMOTHY BENNETT, sergeant paramedic, DC FEMS: My job was to determine where we were in the building and figure out what was the best entrance to get him out of. The elevators were all out of service. The Capitol Police officers and the guardsmen actually had him in a wheelchair and carried them up the spiral staircase to get to the floor we needed to be to get them out. It was not an easy effort, and they did an admirable job.24
JON HOPE: And then transported him up to the ambulance where we provided some additional care and treatment and then transported him to the hospital.25
CRAIG SICKNICK, Brian Sicknick’s brother: I got a call from my mother, and I knew it wasn’t a normal call, just from the tone in her voice. She’s in DC and my brother was injured and it’s not good. This was a complete shock, but I wasn’t sure how bad it was yet. [My father, brother, and I] all hopped in one car and started driving to DC.
The last text I got from my brother was something along the lines of, “Great, now I smell like BO, pepper spray, and weed.” That was the last text I got from him.
