Jan. 6 Capitol defenders honored
Trending
WASHINGTON -- Hailed as heroes, the law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were honored Tuesday with Congressional Gold Medals and praised for securing democracy when they fought off a brutal and bloody attack by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the emotional ceremony, tensions still raw in the stately Capitol Rotunda, which was overrun that day when Trump supporters battled police, broke into the building and stormed the halls trying to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election.
"January 6 was a day of horror and heartbreak; it is also a moment of extraordinary heroism -- staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry," Pelosi said.
In bestowing Congress' highest honor, Pelosi praised the heroes for "courageously answering the call to defend our democracy in one of the nation's darkest hours."
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said: "Thank you for having our backs. Thank you for saving our country."
But showing the raw political and emotional fallout from the violent insurrection and its aftermath, representatives of the family of fallen officer Brian Sicknick declined to shake hands with the Republican leaders, snubbing McConnell's outstretched palm.
Sicknick's mother had personally lobbied House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders for the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Capitol attack, or when that failed, to support the House investigative panel. Both McConnell and McCarthy voted against the independent commission, and McCarthy has railed against the House panel as a partisan political exercise.
To recognize the hundreds of officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, the medals will be placed in four locations -- at U.S. Capitol Police headquarters, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution. In signing the legislation last year, Biden said that one will be placed at the Smithsonian museum "so all visitors can understand what happened that day."
Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said for some officers Tuesday was their first visit to the Capitol since that horrific day, a scene filled with the clanking sound of metal poles being wielded as weapons, "the air still thick" with chemical sprays as officers were assaulted by the mob of Trump supporters.
"Many of us still carry the mental, physical and emotional scars," Contee said of the city police officers who rushed in as the U.S. Capitol Police were overrun by the mob.
"Exhausted and injured, it was your blood, your sweat and your tears that marked these grounds," he said.