“Worst day ever.” How a Capitol Police officer fought off the January 6th insurrection

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Scott Dworkin speaks with Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn (part 2). Officer Dunn will be one of the first officers called to testify in front of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection against Congress.

We released part one of our interview with Officer Dunn last week, after the most-watched right-wing extremist Fox News opinion host mercilessly attacked him for having personal, political views so we advanced the release of this first part of a gripping two-part interview with Officer Dunn so the public can learn more about him as a person and as a cop.

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In the first half of our discussion, Officer Dunn told us about his background as a football player, who is close to earning his master’s degree and wanted to give back to his community by working in the field he’d always dreamed of pursuing: being a cop. We left off just after he told us about the start of what he calls his worst day as a police officer which he described succinctly as “the worst day ever.” Here’s an excerpt:

“It was crazy, man. One time I was [in a]… hallway off the rotunda and I’m sitting there and one of my coworkers—we’re looking at each other she’s over there and she’s watching me getting berated by these people—and like, I was kind of protective mode, like taking the blows. ‘Hey, y’all come over here. I got it. What’s up. Y’all talk to me, leave her alone.’

And I remember seeing a team, six or seven people go by in military gear and I think there’s the back of her pants said like ATF. And I was like, ‘thank fucking God.’ These guys are here. Help is here.

Like everybody asks, like, ‘how did it end?’ What did y’all do [differently]? We got more help. That’s what, that’s how it ended. We did it. Wasn’t some magical grenade that you see in like movies or something like, ‘Hey, air support is here.’ No, that’s not what happened. We got more help, more officers came.

And that’s how we were able to get back control. We fought as hard as we could for as long as we could and we did the best we could with what we had. And I’m really proud of a lot of my coworkers. Man, like you learned a lot about people that day. I learned a lot about myself, but you learn a lot about people next to you that day.

Even people that I know Trump supporters, right? I remember watching this one guy [a fellow officer], he’s a Trump supporter. I mean, whacking the hell out of these guys.

As I’m saying is this was bigger than politics. It was an attack on democracy. And that’s why I’m glad that people, some people, even Republicans are able to acknowledge this wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. And that’s why I get so frustrated when people don’t acknowledge it as bad because it wasn’t about politics.

“It was an attack on democracy. And if the Democrats did that or the left supporters or whatever, or the independents or Antifa [or Black Lives Matter. Anybody! Anybody that does that type of act is wrong.”

About Grant Stern