Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges testified July 27 before the House select committee appointed to investigate the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He was one of four members of the Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police who testified about the violence and fear they experienced that day, and how the attack has continued to affect them. Hodges can be seen in widely-circulated piece of footage from the day, at the front of the line of a swarm of officers trying to keep rioters from entering the building through the Capitol tunnels. He’s crushed against a doorframe and his gas mask is ripped from his face, bloodied from the assault, as he screams for help.
Before the committee, he described multiple violent attacks from rioters, who he called terrorists. “To my perpetual confusion, I saw the thin blue line flag” — a symbol of support for law enforcement — “more than once, carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands and continued to assault us,” he said. During one encounter, an attacker told him: “You will die on your knees.”
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