Officer Harry Dunn on the Capitol Riot

Yesterday, July 27th 2021, on the first day of Congressional hearings on the Capitol Riot, aka the Insurrection of January 6th, Capitol police officer Harry Dunn testified:

“I went back into the Capitol and up the stairs to the Crypt. There, I saw rioters who had invaded the Capitol carrying a Confederate flag, a red “MAGA” flag, and a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.”

A bit later:

More and more insurrectionists were pouring into the area by the Speaker’s Lobby near the Rotunda, some wearing “MAGA” hats and shirts that said “Trump 2020.” I told them to leave the Capitol, and in response, they yelled back: “No, no, man, this is our house!” “President Trump invited us here!” “We’re here to stop the steal!” “Joe Biden is not the President!” “Nobody voted for Joe Biden!”

I am a law enforcement officer, and I keep politics out of my job. But in this circumstance, I responded: “Well, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?”

That prompted a torrent of racial epithets. One woman in a pink “MAGA” shirt yelled, “You hear that, guys, this nigger voted for Joe Biden!” Then the crowd, perhaps around twenty people, joined in, screaming “Boo! Fucking Nigger!”

No one had ever – ever – called me a “nigger” while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer.

He was not alone:

In the days following the attempted insurrection, other black officers shared with me their own stories of racial abuse on January 6. One officer told me he had never, in his entire forty years of life, been called a “nigger” to his face, and that that streak ended on January 6. Yet another black officer later told he had been confronted by insurrectionists inside the Capitol, who told him to “Put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of nigger you really are!”

Later, after the Capitol was cleared:

I sat down on a bench with a friend of mine who is also a black Capitol Police officer, and told him about the racial slurs I had endured. I became very emotional and began yelling “How the [expletive] can something like this happen?! Is this America?” I began sobbing, and officers came over to console me.

On telling the truth:

“[Republicans] Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes, and while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is.

Tucker Carlson on Fox News that night dismissed Officer Dunn and the other officers who testified as liars hand-picked by Democrats. Last week Carlson said:

“Dunn will pretend to speak for the country’s law enforcement community, but it turns out Dunn has very little in common with your average cop. Dunn is an angry, left-wing political activist.”

Carlson pointed to this 2019 tweet by Dunn :

“Racism is so American, that when you protest it, people think that you are protesting America!”

All but proving Dunn’s point.

– Abagond, 2021.

Sources: text of his testimony, C-SPAN (video of the same), NPR, NewsOne, The Wrap, Fox News.

See also:

• The US Capitol riot
  • Cori Bush on the Capitol Riot – also inside the Capitol that day
• Fox News
  • Tucker Carlson
• The Confederate flag
• The N-word
• This is America
  • 2018: Childish Gambino
  • 2019: Eddie Glaude

548