U.S.
Capitol
Police
Sgt.
Harry
Dunn
speaks
with
Chairman
Rep.
Bennie
Thompson,
D-Miss.,
after a
House
select
committee
hearing
on the
Jan. 6
attack
on
Capitol
Hill in
Washington,
Tuesday,
July 27,
2021.
(Andrew
Caballero-Reynolds/Pool
via AP) |
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U.S.
Capitol
Police
Sgt.
Aquilino
Gonell
listens
during a
House
select
committee
hearing
on the
Jan. 6
attack
on
Capitol
Hill in
Washington,
Tuesday,
July 27,
2021.
(Andrew
Caballero-Reynolds/Pool
via AP) |
|
Racism
of
rioters
takes
center
stage in
Jan. 6
hearing
By
AARON
MORRISON
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- It had
only
been
hinted
at in
previous
public
examinations
of the
Jan. 6
Capitol
insurrection:
Scores
of
rioters
attacked
police
officers
not just
with
makeshift
weapons,
stun
guns and
fists,
but with
racist
slurs
and
accusations
of
treason.
Four
officers,
two from
the U.S.
Capitol
Police
and two
from the
D.C.’s
Metropolitan
Police
Department,
on
Tuesday
detailed
the
racism
and
bigotry
they
encountered
during
the
violent
assault
on the
Capitol.
Their
direct,
harrowing
accounts
laid out
the
hours
when the
pro-police
sentiment
of
supporters
of
former
President
Donald
Trump
was
pushed
aside,
consumed
by the
fury of
wanting
to keep
him in
the
White
House.
Capitol
Police
Officer
Harry
Dunn
told
lawmakers
about an
exchange
he had
with
rioters,
who
disputed
that
President
Joe
Biden
defeated
Trump in
the last
presidential
election.
When
Dunn,
who is
Black,
argued
with the
rioters
that he
voted
for
Biden
and that
his vote
should
be
counted,
a crowd
began
hurling
the
N-word
at him.
“One
woman in
a pink
‘MAGA’
(Make
America
Great
Again)
shirt
yelled,
‘You
hear
that,
guys,
this
n———
voted
for Joe
Biden!’”
said
Dunn,
who has
served
more
than a
dozen
years on
the
Capitol
Police
force.
“Then
the
crowd,
perhaps
around
20
people,
joined
in,
screaming
“Boo!
F——— n——
!” he
testified.
He said
no one
had ever
called
him the
N-word
while he
was in
uniform.
That
night,
he sat
in the
Capitol
Rotunda
and
wept.
Ahead of
Tuesday’s
hearing,
House
Intelligence
Committee
Chairman
Adam
Schiff,
a member
of the
panel,
said the
Capitol
and D.C.
officers
would
provide
insight
into
“what it
was like
to be on
the
front
lines.”
However,
Dunn was
also
speaking
to the
experience
of being
an
African
American
police
officer,
who make
up 29%
of
roughly
2,300
officers
and
civilians
serving
on the
Capitol
Police
force.
Dunn
said
another
Black
male
officer
told him
that,
while
confronting
the
rioters
on Jan.
6, he
was told
to “Put
your gun
down and
we’ll
show you
what
kind of
n—— you
really
are!”
The
panel’s
chairman,
Democratic
Rep.
Bennie
Thompson
of
Mississippi,
pressed
Dunn
further
about
how he
felt
being an
African
American
officer
facing
down
racists
and
enduring
racial
slurs in
the
halls of
democracy.
“It’s
just so
disheartening
that
people
like
that
will
attack
you just
for the
color of
your
skin,”
Dunn
replied.
“Once I
was able
to
process
it, it
hurt. My
blood is
red. I’m
an
American
citizen.
I’m a
police
officer.
I’m a
peace
officer.”
While
Black
Americans
make up
roughly
13% of
the U.S.
population,
they
were
roughly
11% of
all
police
officers
in 2016
across a
sampling
of
18,000
local
law
enforcement
agencies
in the
U.S.,
according
to the
U.S.
Bureau
of
Justice
Statistics.
Over 71%
of
officers
were
white in
2016.
It’s
this
kind of
treatment
endured
by Black
men and
women in
law
enforcement
that
policing
experts
say
makes
recruitment
and
diversity
among
U.S.
police
forces
challenging.
The law
enforcement
profession
has also
struggled
with its
origins
in
America,
dating
back to
the
slave
patrols
in the
early
1700s
formed
to
capture
people
who
escaped
slavery
and
terrorize
the
enslaved
into
submission.
Although
many
African
Americans
have
served
valiantly
on local
and
federal
police
forces
since
the
civil
rights
movement,
data
shows
Black
Americans
are
still
arrested
in
disproportionate
numbers
and more
likely
to be
fatally
shot by
police.
Another
Capitol
Police
officer,
Sgt.
Aquilino
Gonell,
wiped
away
tears as
he
recalled
the
story of
his
immigration
to the
U.S.
from the
Dominican
Republic,
only to
face
fellow
Americans
who
considered
him a
traitor
for
defending
the
Capitol
on Jan.
6.
“It
was very
disappointing,”
Gonell
said. “I
saw many
officers
fighting
for
their
lives
against
people,
rioters
(and)
citizens,
turning
against
us.”
Gonell,
an Iraq
War
veteran,
also
called
out the
disparate
law
enforcement
response
to the
overwhelmingly
white
crowd of
rioters
and the
response
to
racial
justice
protests
in 2020
that
followed
the
murder
of
George
Floyd
and the
police
involved
deaths
of other
Black
Americans.
“As
America
and the
world
watched
in
horror
what was
happening
to us at
the
Capitol,
we did
not
receive
timely
reinforcements
and
support
we
needed,”
he said.
“In
contrast,
during
the
Black
Lives
Matter
protest
last
year,
U.S.
Capitol
Police
had all
the
support
we
needed
and
more.
Why the
different
response?”
Indeed,
law
enforcement
agencies
in
dozens
of
cities
last
year
showed
overwhelming
force
toward
BLM
demonstrators.
Many
used
chemical
dispersants,
rubber
bullets
and
hand-to-hand
combat
with
largely
peaceful
crowds
and some
unruly
vandals
and
looters.
By the
end of
2020,
police
had made
more
than
14,000
arrests.
In
January,
as
images
and
video
emerged
from the
attacks
on the
Capitol,
a racist
and
anti-Semitic
element
among
the
rioters
became
apparent.
One man
was
pictured
inside
of the
Capitol
building
carrying
a
Confederate
battle
flag.
And
in the
nearly
seven
months
since
the
attacks,
more
video
investigations
revealed
several
rioters
had
flashed
white
supremacist
gang
signs
and
“white
power”
hand
signals
during
the
insurrection.
Gonell
also
called
out the
hypocrisy
he
perceived
from
many of
the
rioters
who
profess
to
support
law
enforcement
— “the
thin
blue
line” —
but did
not
agree
with
those
protesting
over
Floyd
last
summer.
“There
are some
who
expressed
outrage
when
someone
simply
kneeled
for
social
justice
during
the
national
anthem,”
Gonell
said.
“Where
are
those
same
people
expressing
outrage
to
condemn
the
violent
attack
on law
enforcement
officers,
the U.S.
Capitol,
and our
American
democracy?”
“I’m
still
waiting
for
that,”
he said.
___
Morrison
reported
from New
York. He
is a
member
of AP’s
Race and
Ethnicity
team.
Follow
him on
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.
___
This
story
has been
corrected
to show
the
quote at
the end
was from
Gonell,
not
Dunn.
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