As President Donald Trump took office for a second term on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said the day’s news abruptly followed him. Gonell put his phone on “do not disturb” and left it on his nightstand to take a break from the news.
He said the phone then started to blow up with calls and messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the federal Bureau of Prisons. Gonell said the messages indicated Trump had just pardoned about 1,500 people convicted for their actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Gonell said he was told that people he testified against were being released from prison. “They told me that people I testified against were being released from prison,” Gonell said, adding that he was told “to be mindful.”
Gonell, one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, said he and other officers were injured during the attack as they tried to protect the building. He said he was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps while he attempted to fight people off and that he almost suffocated.
He said the injuries he described in court—including issues with his shoulder and foot—still bother him. Gonell also said the pardons have become part of what he described as an effort to erase officers’ roles: “They have tried to erase what I did,” he said, adding that he “lost my career, my health, and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”
Five years after the riot, Gonell and other officers who said they fought off the rioters described their recovery as intertwined with an evolving public narrative. The article said their stress has been compounded by statements from Trump and some GOP lawmakers that minimize the violence the officers encountered.
Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who said he was injured in the West Front tunnel during the fighting, said, “It’s been a difficult year.” He said, “A lot of things are getting worse,” describing attacks that included being beaten in the head while he screamed for help, and being crushed by rioters between heavy doors.
The article said more than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, 2021, as the confrontation grew increasingly brutal. It also cited former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, who took over the department six months after the riot, saying officers were angry not only because of injuries they suffered, but because they “resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed.”
Several officers told The Associated Press that the hardest part since the riot has been what they described as efforts to play down the violence, even as video and photographic evidence exists. The article also said Trump has described some of the rioters he pardoned as “patriots” and “hostages,” and called the convictions for harming officers and breaking into the building “a grave national injustice.”
Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer who said he fought the rioters and helped push them off the Capitol grounds, said, “I think that was wrong” about the pardons. Eveland said that if pardons were to be granted, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case, and he said he has “had a hard time processing that.”
Winston Pingeon, a former Capitol Police officer who said he was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6, said the pardons changed what accountability looked like. “The pardons ‘erased what little justice there was,’” Pingeon said.
The article said Hodges and Gonell have spoken about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan. 6. It also described Hodges’ later testimony in October at a Republican-led Senate hearing on political violence, where Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asked witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardons, including for those who injured Hodges, and where three witnesses raised their hands.
Hodges said, “I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent.” He said his struggle has also included pushback from people around him and from fellow officers, along with friends and family who questioned whether it was a big deal.
In describing changes after the riot, Manger said the department had to build better support for officers. He said that when he arrived there were no wellness or counseling services, and “The officers who were there and were in the fight — we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed.”
The article said Manger, who retired in May, oversaw improvements to training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence, and said the Capitol is now “a great deal safer.” He said that if the events happened again, rioters would “have never breached the building,” “never gotten inside,” and “never disrupted the electoral count.”
Pingeon said the department now felt “unrecognizable” compared with what it was on Jan. 6, and he said the riot was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. “The real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,” he said, adding that he now feels ready to forgive.
Gonell said he left the Capitol Police because of his injuries and has not returned to service, though he hopes to work again. He said he wrote a book about his experience and that he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.
Eveland said he spoke publicly in an effort to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint,” and he said he has had to accept that not everyone will understand or be sympathetic. “The only thing I can do is tell my story, and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually listen.”