{"id":105497,"date":"2026-01-04T20:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/105497\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T20:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:41:18","slug":"officers-who-defended-the-capitol-on-jan-6-say-their-struggles-linger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/105497\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 As Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time<\/a> on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell<\/a> put his phone on “do not disturb” and left it on his nightstand to take a break from the news.<\/p>\n

That evening, after Gonell spent time with family and took his dog on a long walk, his phone started to blow up with calls. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the federal Bureau of Prisons \u2014 all letting him know that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people<\/a> who had been convicted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021<\/a>. The pardons included rioters who had injured Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me that people I testified against were being released from prison,\u201d Gonell said. \u201cAnd to be mindful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol<\/a> that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump’s supporters broke into the building<\/a>, echoing his false claims of a stolen election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries<\/a> to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have tried to erase what I did\u201d with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. \u201cI lost my career, my health, and I\u2019ve been trying to get my life back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years since the siege, Gonell and some of the other police officers who fought off the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted those pardons. Their struggle has been compounded by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress minimizing the violence<\/a> that the officers encountered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult year,\u201d said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought near Gonell in a tunnel on the West Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things are getting worse,\u201d Hodges said.<\/p>\n

An evolving narrative <\/p>\n

More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.<\/p>\n

Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger took over the department six months after the riot. He said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed<\/a> ” to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.<\/p>\n

Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence<\/a>, despite a massive trove of video and photographic evidence<\/a> documenting the carnage.<\/p>\n

Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were most violent toward the police, \u201cpatriots\u201d and \u201chostages.\u201d He called their convictions for harming the officers and breaking into the building \u201ca grave national injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was wrong,\u201d Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump\u2019s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Eveland said, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a hard time processing that,\u201d said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped to push them off the Capitol grounds.<\/p>\n

The pardons \u201cerased what little justice there was,\u201d said former Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force\u2019s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6. He left the force several months afterward.<\/p>\n

Pushback from lawmakers and the public <\/p>\n

Hodges and Gonell have been speaking out about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified<\/a> before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan 6. Since then, they have received support but also backlash.<\/p>\n

At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges testified again as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asked the other witnesses whether they supported Trump\u2019s pardons of the rioters, including for those who injured Hodges. Three of the witnesses, all called by Republicans, raised their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you would say it wasn\u2019t violent,\u201d says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.<\/p>\n

It has not just been politicians or the rioters who have doubted the police. It also is friends and family.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,\u201d Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to wrap my head around that, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Improvements in safety and support <\/p>\n

As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department had to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services when he arrived, he said, and they were put in to place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe officers who were there and were in the fight \u2014 we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed,\u201d Manger said.<\/p>\n

Manger, who retired in May, also oversaw major improvements to the department\u2019s training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now \u201ca great deal safer\u201d than it was when he arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that exact same thing happened again, they would have never breached the building, they would have never gotten inside, they would have never disrupted the electoral count,\u201d Manger said.<\/p>\n

Pingeon, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways \u201cunrecognizable\u201d from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a wake-up call,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pressing on <\/p>\n

Pingeon, who was attacked and knocked to the ground as he tried to prevent people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. He has dealt with his experience by painting images of the Capitol and his time there, as well as advocating for nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gonell left the Capitol Police because of his injuries. He has not returned to service, though he hopes to work again. He wrote a book about his experience, and he said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.<\/p>\n

While many of the officers who were there have stayed quiet about their experiences, Eveland said he decided that it was important to talk publicly about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and \u201ccome at it from a logical standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he said, \u201cI\u2019ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because something happened to me and was a major part of my world doesn\u2019t mean that everyone else has to understand that or even be sympathetic to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe only thing I can do is tell my story, and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 As Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[54454,54452,477,116,118,117,38354,38356,99,54453,1110,4147],"class_list":["post-105497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-2021-united-states-capitol-riot","tag-capitol-riot-police-trump-jan-6-congress","tag-general-news","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-law-and-order","tag-pardons-and-commutations","tag-politics","tag-riots","tag-u-s-news","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}