On the eve of the anniversary of a violent insurrection, ex-US Capitol Police Officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonell wrote a guest essay for this Sunday’s New York Times. In the piece, For Many of Us, Jan. 6 Never Ended, Gonell gives an eyewitness account of the fatal riot. A summary of its tragic aftermath. And his opinion of the spineless GOP politicians who maintain it was ‘no biggie’.
In doing so, he contrasts his hardscrabble life and career with the gilded, silver-spoon existence of the attempted insurrection’s chief architect and instigator, the convicted felon Trump.
Gonell says that the physical and psychological pain of Jan 6 is still fresh four years later — while most Americans have moved on. He explains it was a bloody battle no matter how the MAGA apologists might try to whitewash it.
“For my efforts doing my duty as a Capitol Police sergeant, I was beaten and struck by raging rioters all over my body with multiple weapons until I was covered in my own blood. My hand, foot and shoulder were wounded. I thought I was going to die and never make it home to see my wife and young son.”
Gonell is not a whiner. He considers himself lucky compared to both colleagues and some rioters.
“I was one of the fortunate ones that day; nine people wound up dead as a result of the rampage. Two protesters had fatal medical episodes, one rioter overdosed during the uproar and another was fatally shot by a policeman while forcing her way into the House Chamber.
One of my colleagues, 42-year-old Officer Brian Sicknick, suffered two strokes after the trauma of fighting off multiple protesters who sprayed him with a chemical irritant. He didn’t survive. Four D.C. policemen harmed in the riots later died by suicide.”
In addition, he writes of:
“My friend Harry Dunn, [who] testified about our primitive hand-to-hand fighting against improvised weaponry like flagpoles, metal bike racks and projectiles, with officers bleeding, blinded and coughing from bear spray.”
And:
“My co-worker Michael Fanone was beaten, burned and electrically shocked. He suffered a heart attack, concussion and traumatic brain injury that caused him to also leave his position at the Metropolitan Police.”
Gonell points out that the guy who started the damn thing has no care for the dead and wounded. Instead, in an Orwellian spin, Trump paints perpetrators as victims. Gonell writes:
“Over the last four years, it’s been devastating to me to hear Donald Trump repeat his promise to pardon insurrectionists on the first day he’s back in office. “It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” he said in a speech last year.”
Gonell calls Trump a liar. And points out what everyone watching could see — but which the morally blind deny.
“But all of us who were there and anyone who watched on TV know that those who stormed the Capitol were not peaceful protesters. Pardoning them would be an outrageous mistake, one that could mean about 800 convicted criminals will be back on the street.”
He adds:
“Releasing those who assaulted us from blame would be a desecration of justice. If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.”
Gonell does not spare the expedient and cynical ass-lickers who falsely represent themselves as pro-LEO while covering up their Dear Leader’s crimes against the police.
“I resent the ongoing whitewashing of the barbarity and the collective amnesia of right-wing politicians who aren’t willing to hold Mr. Trump accountable. I can’t bear to hear Republicans describe themselves as the “law and order” party.
Gonell contrasts his hard life and patriotic service as a poor immigrant with that of the son and grandson of immigrants, born to wealth, who never put himself in harm’s way.
“I grew up poor in the Dominican Republic, came to this country legally at age 12 and became the first in my family to finish high school and college. My dad was a taxi driver who could give me only $100 to help pay for college.
Mr. Trump’s father was a real estate developer who bequeathed him at least $413 million over the years.
While Mr. Trump escaped the Vietnam draft with a medical exemption for bone spurs and never served in the military, I finished my degree with the help of the G.I. Bill after I enlisted and served in the Middle East.
Gonell contrasted his two experiences of organized violence.
“What I experienced defending the Capitol against rioters was worse than the combat I saw in Iraq.
How’s that for juxtaposition? It was worse fighting against America’s wannabe Saddam Hussein’s troops in the US than it was fighting against the real Saddam Hussein’s troops in Iraq.
For four years, Americans who believe criminals should be punished and democracy upheld, hoped Trump would get just due for his serial felonies, continuous frauds, repeated sexual assaults, theft of state secrets, and attempted coup. On November 5, 2024, decent and thoughtful citizens wished that a me-first, America-last, woefully incompetent, and fascistic moron would be kicked to the curb. It didn’t happen.
So be it. Bad things happening is the human experience. America is a country that has witnessed slavery, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and Jim Crow. It has suffered a Civil War, a Great Depression, many recessions, and political malfeasance as old as the Republic.
The next four years will go in the history books as a blot on the national honor.
On the other hand, millions of Americans have fought against the evils visited on their native or adopted land. The emancipationists won the war. Women got the vote and credit in their own name. Minorities gained civil rights.
I am not naive. Conservative bigotry is alive and well. Women have lost the right to bodily self-autonomy. Minorities have seen their voting rights curtailed. Even national treasures like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and healthcare in general are threatened.
But there are millions of Aquilino Gonells ready to fight. And I feel (call me a deluded optimist if you must) that all is not going according to the MAGA plan. On November 6, 2024, the tunnel was pitch black. Starting on January 21, 2025, when the nihilists and power-grabbers will have to put theory into practice, I wouldn’t be surprised if the end of the tunnel doesn’t begin to brighten.
