“Tough year.” How do the officers who defended the Capitol grapple with efforts to downplay the violence that occurred on January 6?

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell put his phone on “do not disturb” mode and left it on his nightstand to take a break from the news.

That evening, after Jonelle spent some time with family and took his dog for a long walk, his phone started blowing up with calls. He had letters from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the Federal Bureau of Prisons — all telling him that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people convicted for their actions at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The pardon included rioters who injured Gonell while he and other officers were trying to protect the building.

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“They told me that the people I testified against had been released from prison,” Gunnell said. “And to be informed.”

Gunnell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance of the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building, chanting his false claims about the election being stolen. Jonelle was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to push people away. He almost choked. He testified in court about the injuries he sustained to his shoulder and foot that still trouble him to this day.

“They tried to erase what I did” with pardons and other attempts to downplay the violent attack, Gunnell said. “I lost my career and my health and I was trying to get my life back.”

Read more: Jack Smith told Congress that the January 6 attack “wouldn’t happen” without Trump

Five years after the siege, Gunnell and some other police officers who fought the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted this pardon. Their struggle has been exacerbated by statements by the Republican president and some Republican lawmakers in Congress downplaying the violence officers have faced.

“It’s been a tough year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured during the fighting near Gunnell in a tunnel on the Western Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed between heavy doors by rioters and hit on the head as he screamed for help.

“A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

A sophisticated novel

More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on January 6, which turned increasingly brutal over time.

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 the injuries they had sustained but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed” to deal with unexpectedly violent crowds.

Read more: A federal judge is considering Trump’s claim of immunity from civil suits over the Capitol attack

Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with was the effort by many to downplay the violence, despite a vast body of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.

Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were the most violent toward police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their conviction for harming the officers and storming the building a “grave national injustice.”

“I think it was a mistake,” Adam Eveland, a former police officer in the District of Columbia, said of Trump’s pardon. If there had been a pardon, Eveland said, the Trump administration should have reviewed every case.

“I had a hard time dealing with that,” said Eveland, who fought rioters and helped evict them from the Capitol grounds.

He watches: January 6: Police officers and House Democrats criticize Trump’s pardon

Former Capitol Police Officer Winston Benjon, who was part of the force’s civil disturbance unit on Jan. 6, said the pardon “erases what little justice there was.” He left the police after several months.

Reaction from lawmakers and the public

Hodges and Gonell have spoken publicly about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated on 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 spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, asked other witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardon of rioters, including those who injured Hodges. Three witnesses called by Republicans raised their hands.

“I don’t know how you can say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

It wasn’t just politicians or rioters who questioned the police. It is also friends and family.

“My biggest struggle over the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, relaying conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who didn’t think it was a big deal.

“It’s hard for me to comprehend, but ideology is a very powerful thing,” he said.

Improvements in safety and support

As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department should know how to better support them. He said there were no health or counseling services when he arrived, and they were put in place.

“The officers who were there and were in the fight, we needed to make sure they got the help they needed,” Manger said.

Manger, who retired in May, oversaw major improvements in the department’s training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “more secure” than when he arrived.

“If the exact same thing happened again, they would never have broken into the building, they would never have gone inside, they would never have disrupted the vote count,” Manger said.

Bingone, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is “unrecognizable” in many ways from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.

“It was a wake-up call,” he said.

Press on

Bingon, who was attacked and thrown to the ground while trying to prevent people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was part of the reason he left the department and moved to his home in Massachusetts. He coped with his experience by drawing pictures of the Capitol and his time there, as well as advocating nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.

“The real shock and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to get over it,” he said.

Gunnell left Capitol Police from 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 suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.

While many of the officers who were there remained silent about their experiences, Eveland said he decided it was important to speak out about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint.”

However, he said, “I had to accept the fact that just because something happened to me and was a big part of my world didn’t mean everyone had to understand it or even empathize with it.”

He added: “The only thing I can do is tell my story, and hope that people who respect me will listen to me in the end.”