WASHINGTON — Like Donald Trump opened for the second time On January 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell I turned my phone to Do Not Disturb mode and left it on the nightstand to take a break from the news.
That evening, after Gonell spent time with his family and took his dog for a long walk, his phone started ringing off the hook. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, all of whom made it clear to him that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people who were convicted for their actions at the Capitol January 6, 2021. Those pardoned included rioters who wounded Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.
“They told me that the people I testified against had been released from prison,” Gonell said. “And be careful.”
Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central entrance to the Capitol from the Western Front. on the day Congress certified the victory of Democrat Joe Biden and hundreds of Trump supporters broke into the buildingrepeating his false claims of a rigged election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps when he tried to fight off people. He almost suffocated. In court he testified about injuries shoulder and leg, which bother him to this day.
“They tried to erase what I did” with pardons and other attempts to downplay the brutal attack, Gonell said. “I’ve lost my career, my health and I’m trying to get my life back.”
Five years after the siege, Gonell and some 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 pardons. Their fight has been exacerbated by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress. minimizing violence what the officers encountered.
“It's been a difficult year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also wounded during the fighting near Gonell in a tunnel on the Western Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by rioters under heavy doors and hit in the head as he screamed for help.
“A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.
More than 140 police were wounded during the fighting on January 6, which became increasingly violent as time passed.
Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Munger took over the department six months after the riot. In a recent interview, he said that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of the injuries he sustained, but “they were angered by the fact that they there was no necessary equipment and necessary training ” to deal with the unexpectedly aggressive crowd.
Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with was the attempts of many downplay violencedespite a huge treasure trove of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.
Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including some who committed the most brutality against police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their convictions for harming officers and trespassing a “grave national injustice.”
“I think it was wrong,” Adam Eveland, a former D.C. police officer, said of Trump's pardon. If there were a pardon, Eveland said, the Trump administration would have to re-examine every case.
“It was hard for me to wrap my head around it,” said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped push them off the Capitol grounds.
The pardon “erased what little justice there was,” said former Capitol Police officer Winston Pingone, who was assigned to the civil disturbance unit on Jan. 6. He left the police force a few months later.
Hodges and Gonell talk about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before a Democratic-led House committee investigating the events of January 6. Since then they have received support, but also backlash.
At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges again testified as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges recounted his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, asked other witnesses whether they supported Trump pardoning rioters, including those who wounded Hodges. Three witnesses called by Republicans raised their hands.
“I don't know how you can say it wasn't violent,” said Hodges, who still works as a Washington police officer.
It wasn't just politicians or rioters who questioned the police's actions. It's also about friends and family.
“My biggest problem over the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who don't think it was a big deal.
“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,” he said.
As officers face the consequences, Munger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department needs to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services available when he arrived, he said, and they were put on hold.
“The officers that were there and engaged in combat, we needed to make sure they got the help they needed,” Munger said.
Munger, who retired in May, also oversaw significant improvements in the department's training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “much safer” than it was when he arrived.
“If the same thing happened again, they would never have gotten into the building, they would never have gotten in, they would never have disrupted the vote count,” Munger said.
Pingone, a former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways “unrecognizable” from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left months later.
“It was a wake-up call,” he said.
Pingone, who was attacked and pushed to the ground as he tried to stop people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was one of the reasons he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. He used his experience to paint images of the Capitol and his time there, and to advocate for nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.
“I want to forget the real trauma, the heartache and everything I went through because of these events,” he said.
Gonell left the Capitol Police due to his injuries. He has not returned to duty, although he hopes to work again. He wrote a book about his experience and said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.
Although many of the officers there remained silent about their experiences, Eveland said he decided it was important to speak publicly about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint.”
However, he said, “I had to come to terms with the fact that just because something happened to me and was an important part of my world, doesn't mean everyone else has to understand it or even sympathize with it.”
He added: “The only thing I can do is tell my story and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually hear me.”
