Three Capitol Police officers have described being beaten, tasered with bear mace and having their weapons ripped from them by the MAGA mob who shouted they wanted to ‘kill them with their own guns’ last Wednesday.
Michael Fanone, 40, Christina Laury and 32-year-old Daniel Hodges were among the Capitol cops who were overpowered by the mob on January 6.
On Thursday, they spoke at a press conference to share details of how the rioters beat them after breaking in to the Capitol Building while the House certified the election result.
Fanone, a father-of-four, told how the rioters tried to grab his gun and yelled: ‘Kill him with his own gun!’
‘We weren’t battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel. We were battling 15,000 people.
‘It looked like a medieval battle scene,’ Fanone said. He and his colleagues rushed to the Capitol after hearing an urgent call for back-up on the radio.
He was among the few cops who tried to defend the Western Terrace.
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Officer Michael Fanone is showing being crushed by the mob as he tries to defend the Capitol on January 6
Fanone was completely outnumbered. He said the mob reached for his gun and yelled ‘we got one! we got one!’ as they dragged him away from his colleagues
Fanone, on Thursday, said he thinks he only lived because he told the mob about his children, pleading with them ‘I have a family!’
He says he was only spared because he pleaded with them not to kill him for the sake of his children.
‘Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, ‘Kill him with his own gun.
‘So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody’s humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work.’
After he did that, he says some of the rioters protected him from the others.
‘Thank you, but f*** you for being there,’ he said to those rioters who shielded him.
Fanone said that his colleagues had mace sprayed in their faces, had their batons stolen and were then beaten with them.
‘We were getting chemical irritants sprayed.
‘They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those,’ he said.
He says that it was impossible to fight the crowd.
Officer Daniel Hodges, with blood pouring from his guns, is crushed by the mob by a door
Hodges is shown speaking at the Capitol on Thursday about the attack
‘It was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side. It was difficult to offer any resistance when you’re only about 30 guys going up against 15,000,’ he said.
Christina Laury says she was sprayed in the face with bear mace and had to fight the mob blind
It’s unclear exactly how many cops were there that day but the Capitol Police force has only 2,300 in total and it’s likely fewer than half were there.
Christina Laury works int the unit’s gun recovery unit.
She said the cops were sprayed with bear mace, which is stronger than ordinary types of mace.
‘The individuals were pushing officers, hitting officers.
‘They were spraying us with what we were calling, essentially, bear mace, because you use it on bears.
‘Unfortunately, it shuts you down for a while.
‘It’s way worse than pepper spray.
‘It seals your eyes shut. … You’ve got to spray and douse yourself with water.
‘And in those moments it’s scary because you can’t see anything and have people that are fighting to get through,’ she said.
Daniel Hodges, 32: Beaten with his own baton by a MAGA rioter who was ‘foaming at the mouth’
The crowd sprayed bear mace at the officers, which is far stronger than any other type of mace
The cops are shown washing their eyes after being maced by the MAGA mob
‘There’s a guy ripping my mask off, he was able to rip away the baton and beat me with it,
‘He was practically foaming at the mouth so just, these people were true believers in the worst way.
‘You know things were looking bad.
‘I was calling out for all I was worth, and an officer behind me was able to get me enough room to pull me out of there and get me to the rear so I was able to extricate myself.’
The Capitol cops were gravely outnumbered on January 6 despite a plethora of early warning signs that the mob was coming.
Now, there are ongoing questions about why help wasn’t called in earlier.
The DC Mayor asked the National Guard for back-up on New Year’s Eve but she was only given 340 cops.
No one in the Capitol force requested back-up ahead of time.
The Capitol Police chief, Steven Sund, stepped down within days of the incident.