Black policeman fondly recounts racial attacks by crowd on January 6

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U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn delivered some of the most moving testimonies during the Jan.6 riots investigation, describing how the mob hurled racial epithets at him and lamenting the state of the America.

“It was so upsetting,” said Dunn, who joined three other police officers at the first hearing held by the House select committee. “And it’s so disheartening and disappointing that we live in a country with people like that, attacking you for the color of your skin, just to hurt you. Those words are weapons.”

He said the racist attacks he has been subjected to are, to some extent, American.

“But it’s not the, it’s not the side of America that I love,” he said. “This is not the side we represent here.

“We represent the good side of America, the people who really believe in decency, in human decency, and we appeal, just, to the good in people,” he added.

This is not the first time that Dunn, who also suffered physical assault when a host of supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol, has opened up about the epithets he has faced. In April, he told MSNBC that the combination of racist slurs and physical attacks meant the black officers faced a “different” battle while fending off the crowd.

But in a hearing that coupled first-hand testimony from officers to the video of the day, Dunn’s responses to being subjected to a barrage of racial attacks resonated as one of the most moving moments. .

Dunn, a 13-year force veteran, testified that as the rioters approached a room directly off the floor of the house, they shouted that they had been asked by Trump to “arrest the theft “to prevent Congress’ assertion of Joe Biden’s victory. He said the rioters said “no one voted” for Biden.

“I’m a law enforcement officer and I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance I said, ‘Well, I voted for Joe Biden . Doesn’t my vote count? Am I nobody? ” said Dunn, who is black. “It sparked a torrent of racial epithets. A woman in a pink MAGA shirt shouted, ‘Did you hear that, guys? This n —– voted for Joe Biden. ‘ Then the crowd, maybe 20 or so, joined in shouting, “Booo, f —— n —–. “

“No one ever, ever called me n —– wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn continued, adding that after the riot he had heard more black officers racially abused by the crowd. “An officer told me that in his 40 years of life he had never been called n —– face-to-face, and that streak ended on January 6. Another officer Black told me later that he was confronted by insurgents on Capitol Hill who told him to ‘put your gun down, and we’ll show you what kind of shit you really are.’ “

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn gets emotional on Tuesday as he testifies before the House committee investigating the Jan.6 attack on the Capitol in the Cannon House office building. Oliver Contreras / Pool via Getty Images

The description resonated with others.

Representative Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., Tweeted a lengthy clip of Dunn’s response, saying: “Everyone should listen to Officer Harry Dunn’s words about our country.”

So far, more than 500 people have been charged with criminal charges in connection with the riot, which has left five dead and dozens injured.

Dunn said on Tuesday: “For example, one of the scariest things about January 6 is that the people who were there even to this day think they were right. They think they were right. And that makes for a scary recipe for the future of this country. So I think that’s why it’s very important that you all take this committee seriously and know why it happened. so that it will never happen again. “

For months, Dunn was one of the most active Capitol Hill cops pushing for post-riot responsibility.

He lobbied for a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on a commission that Republicans ultimately blocked off. Along with Washington Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, who also testified on Tuesday, Dunn met with parliamentary minority leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Last month, urging him to publicly condemn the nearly two dozen of Republican lawmakers who voted against awarding officers the Congressional Gold Medal or downplaying the January 6 violence. McCarthy, officers said, told them he would address the matter in private.

Dunn’s outspokenness has been vilified in some corners of the right. Prior to his testimony, Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked Dunn last week as an “angry leftist political activist” who “pretends to speak for the law enforcement community in the country.” .

Dunn closed Tuesday with an unrestricted appeal to find out the truth behind the attack.

“There is a feeling going around that everyone is trying to make January 6 political,” he said. “Well, it’s no secret that it was political. They were literally there to ‘stop the theft.’ So when people say it shouldn’t be political, it is. It was and It is. There’s no getting around it. Telling the truth shouldn’t be difficult. “

He pointed to the protective fence that recently fell around the Capitol, saying such measures were happening before any responsibility was determined.

“Everything is different, but nothing has changed,” he said, adding: “So what I’m asking all of you is to get to the bottom of what happened.

“I use an analogy to describe what I want as a hitman,” he continued. “If a hit man is hired and he kills someone, the hit man goes to jail. But not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired him does. There was an attack on January 6, and a hit man sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of this. “

CORRECTION (July 27, 2021, 10:45 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the honor that some Congressional Republicans voted against for police departments that responded to the January 6 riot at the Capitol. The measure awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal, not the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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