Capitol officer says he was called ‘f***ing n***er’ by Trump rioters
“No one had ever called me a ‘n****r’ while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer," officer Harry Dunn testified.
Lawmakers are hearing testimony today from Capitol police officers as the January 6 commission kicks off on the first day of the probe into the origins of the deadly insurrection.
The House Select Committee formed a panel to investigate the Trump-inspired attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Four police officers who defended the building against a mob delivered powerful testimony on Tuesday, with one recalling the vile hatred he received from racist supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
Capitol Officer Henry Dunn, a 13-year veteran of the Capitol Police force, said he and other Black officers were subjected to racist slurs and abuse, with many of the white domestic terrorists chanting “f*cking n***er” at him.
“No one had ever ― ever ― called me a ‘n****r’ while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer until the Capitol riots,” said Dunn in front of House Select Committee members.
Below is more of Dunn’s uncensored testimony below:
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 n****r voted for Joe Biden!” Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in, screaming “Boo! Fucking n–er!”
No one had ever — ever ― called me a “n—er” while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer. In the days following the attempted insurrection, other Black officers shared with me their own stories of racial abuse on Jan. 6. One officer told me he had never, in his entire 40 years of life, been called a “n—er” 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 n—er you really are!”
Dunn said he later “became very emotional” while speaking to another Black Capitol police officer about the racist abuse.
“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,” Dunn said in his testimony. “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.”
As previously reported by theGRIO, the insurrectionists descended on the nation’s capital that day to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Many attended a rally by Trump, who was refusing to concede even though there was no evidence to suggest the election had been rigged and his own administration said that it was not.
Hundreds of Trump supporters broke through police barricades and overwhelmed officers, violently shoving their way into the building to chants of “Hang Mike Pence” and “Stop the Steal.” Some came prepared with pepper spray, baseball bats and other weapons. More than 400 people have been charged; it’s the largest prosecution in the Justice Department’s history.
This story contains additional reporting from theGRIO’s Associated Press.
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