Sunday, January 17, 2021

Defending Against The Enemy Within

PHOTO: Metropolitan Police Department Narcotics officer Michael Fanone speaks with ABC News' Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas about his experience at the U.S. Capitol when a pro-trump mob attempted to get in.
"It looked like a medieval battle scene. Some of the most brutal combat I've ever encountered."
"There’s no longer any police lines. There's just chaos. Rioters running rampant across the Capitol grounds, fatigued, you know, injured officers everywhere."
"[Officers who were in the tunnel defending the Capitol were] fighting like lions."
"Some guys pulled me out into the crowd and some were yelling something ... they were beating me."  "At one point, I got tased, people were yelling out, 'We got one. We got one'."
"Individuals in the crowd tried to get my gun. At one point, people started chanting, 'Kill him with his own gun'. I remember at one point, you know, some of the people in the crowd while I was getting tasered, they were stripping my gear off of my vest, my badge off my radio. They started grabbing ammunition magazines from my belt."
"I remember yelling out, not to anybody in specific, 'I have kids' and it seemed to work."
Michael Fanone, 20-year narcotics officer, Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department
 
PHOTO: Metropolitan Police Department Office Daniel Hodges speaks with ABC News' Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas about his experience at the U.S. Capitol when a pro-trump mob attempted to get in.
"Some of them were absolutely crazed -- I would  call them zealous true believers. They would let nothing stop them from getting inside. And it didn't matter, what they had to do to get inside."
"I thought, 'this could be the end,' or 'I could not get out of this completely intact'."
"The guy in front of me, that guy, he was  practically foaming at the mouth. He was screaming and just grabbed my arm, grabbed my filter on my masks, started beating my head against the door frame and ripping it off as best he could."
"Once he got my mask off, he also was able to rip away my night baton from me and started beating me in the head with it."
"Once they ripped my mask off, I was sucking in pepper spray, OC spray and tear gas the entire time. Obviously, that many people yelling in the tunnel is extremely loud. It was just a sensory overload. But all I know is that no one was getting by me."
“They were waving the 'thin-blue-line flag' while they were assaulting us."
"It’s not an exaggeration to say that we defended a democracy, that everyone's duly-elected representatives were in that building and the mob outside was not." 
PHOTO: Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the Capitol in Washington D.C., Jan. 6, 2021.

Protesters climbed the bleachers that were erected for Biden's inauguration
Protesters climbed the bleachers that were erected for Biden's inauguration   Getty Images

Michael Fanon, a DC detective, was dragged into the crowd and beaten
Michael Fanone, a DC detective, was dragged into the crowd and beaten   Reuters

 

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