LANSING, Mich. — Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, say Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is “spewing falsehoods and lies” about what happened that day while he seeks another term as the nation’s leader.
In an interview with The Detroit News on Friday, Harry Dunn, who served in the U.S. Capitol Police, and Daniel Hodges, an officer with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, said Trump was providing the public with false information, including during a press conference a day earlier.
“The Republican nominee for president Donald Trump is lying about we all watched, what we all witnessed,” Dunn said.
On Thursday, Trump touted the size of the crowd that came to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, and said his supporters there — some of whom stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election — had been “treated very unfairly.” Trump also falsely stated that nobody was killed on Jan. 6, 2021. One of the rioters, Ashli Babbit, was fatally shot at as she attempted to enter the U.S. House chamber.
“I think those people were treated very badly. When you compare it to other things that took place in this country where a lot of people were killed,” Trump said on Thursday, less than three months before the Nov. 5 general election.
Trump added that his supporters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, were “there to complain about an election.”
However, Secret Service confiscated “a haul of weapons” from the crowd, including 242 canisters of pepper spray, 18 brass knuckles and six pieces of body armor, according to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Dunn, who served in law enforcement for 15 years and departed the Capitol Police in 2023, recalled seeing police officers being beaten with American flag poles on Jan. 6, 2021, and his colleagues not being able to breathe because they had been blasted with bear spray or Raid insecticide.
“The people that attacked us said that they were there because Donald Trump told them to go there,” Dunn said. “Those are the facts.”
Dunn and Hodges campaigned across Michigan Friday in support of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. They did events in Grand Rapids and Flint and sat for an interview with The News at a coffee shop in Lansing.
Dunn and Hodges said institutions, like the court system, had failed to hold Trump accountable for what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, as he worked to overturn his loss to Biden and pro-Trump demonstrators temporarily interfered with the certification process. Now, Dunn and Hodges argued, it’s up to voters to do bring accountability at the ballot on Nov. 5, as Trump seeks a second term in the White House.
