WASHINGTON — Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell has largely recovered from the brutal attacks he endured at the hands of Donald Trump’s supporters on January 6, 2021. But not quite. His shoulder still has limited endurance, and there are screws and a metal plate holding his right foot together after bone fusion surgery.
Emotional recovery has been more difficult. Gonell struggled when he learned that former Trump visited Capitol Hill last month and received what he called a “hero’s welcome” from the Republican lawmakers Gonell had protected that day, and then Trump false told millions of viewers in debate from last week that many of the violent rioters, his supporters, “were ushered in by police.”
Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill was a “trigger mechanism for my PTSD,” said Gonell, who retired in 2022 due to his injuries and recently attended several campaign events for President Joe Biden. “We were doing what we had to do to keep those elected officials safe, and instead of siding with us, the officers, they were siding with a person who was putting his life in danger.”
Three and a half years after the attack on the Capitol, Trump is still falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen. He has vowed that if he wins the presidency again, he will forgive his supporters who violently beat the police and breached the Capitol to try to overturn the legitimate results. To counter the misinformation, Gonell and two of his fellow officers who were there that day are working with Biden’s campaign, attending events in swing states to make sure voters don’t forget.
“I’m a living primary source on an important day in American history,” said Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who became a recognizable face shortly after the attack when a video of him being crushed between two doors went viral. “So I’m trying to make that count and make sure people hear the truth from someone who was there.”
Joined by former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Hodges and Gonell recount their experiences that day and attempt to contrast Biden and Trump. It’s an unusual transition for law enforcement officers who once protected members of Congress and are used to keeping their political views to themselves.
“I’m really an introvert and I’m not someone who seeks a microphone or an audience,” said Hodges, who testified with Gonell and Dunn at the First House Panel Hearing January 6, 2021. “But I’m in a unique position where people will listen to what I say on an important issue. So I feel a moral obligation to do that.”
At recent events in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, they stood alongside local officials and said Trump poses a danger to the country because he tried to overturn Biden’s legitimate election.
“Three and a half years later, the fight for democracy is still going on,” Dunn recently told a group of voters in Arizona, flanked by a handful of politically active Democratic veterans in Phoenix. “It’s still going on. Donald Trump is still that threat. His deranged, self-centered, obsessive quest for power is the reason that violent insurrectionists attacked my colleagues and me.”
The officers also responded aggressively to Trump’s comments during the debate, where he falsely said there was a “relatively small” group of protesters and that police were letting them into the Capitol. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the riot, and police were bloodied and injured — some seriously — as they tried to prevent more from entering.
Dunn, who recently lost his own bid for a congressional seat in Maryland, said after the debate that Trump’s comments were “a slap in the face, but it’s what we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump.”
And the agents said they still support Biden, even after he failed to refute many of Trump’s false claims about Jan. 6 and faced widespread criticism for his weak performance during the debate.
“He could have been a little bit more powerful, but I’d rather choose the one who doesn’t send a horde to kill me and my colleagues than the one who is different,” said Gonell, who published a book about his experience last year. “Every day I’m reminded of that terrible day. Every time I put on my shoes, I see my scar.”
Gonell was struck at the height of the melee on the west side of the Capitol when Trump’s supporters protesting his defeat tried to force their way past him and his fellow officers. At one point, he was pulled under the crowd and lost oxygen to the point where he thought he would die.
Hodges was nearby, trapped in the heavy gold doors at the center of the Capitol’s West Front as rioters beat him to a bloody pulp. A video of his guttural scream as he tried to escape went viral and was played during the Democratic impeachment trial in the weeks following the attack.
Dunn, who has said he was the target of racial slurs from Trump supporters during the fighting, said it was good to get out of the Washington area, his hometown, and talk to people who may not watch cable news every day as he campaigns for Biden. There’s a lot they don’t know about what happened on Jan. 6, he said.
“It’s really helpful to have someone who was there and who shares the facts and experiences with you, who retells the story,” Dunn said.
The officers were widely praised after Jan. 6, but their criticism of Trump in recent years has made them unpopular with some Republicans. When Gonell and Dunn visited the Pennsylvania Legislature this spring, they were booed by some Republicans.
But they are undeterred by the criticism and continue to try to get more attention for their stories. Gonell was outside the Supreme Court on Monday when the judges ruled on whether Trump has immunity for his role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and criticized the justices for sending the federal case back to a lower court. The decision effectively ends any prospects that Trump could be tried before the November election.
On Friday the court limited a federal obstruction law which has been used to charge several suspects in the Capitol riots.
“Anytime the Supreme Court or any other court says that some of these people should not be held accountable, it is an outrage,” Gonell said.
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Associated Press editor Jonathan Cooper contributed to this report from Phoenix.