Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger, 5 years after the riot

That evening, after Gonell spent time with family and took his dog on a long walk, his phone started to blow up with calls. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the federal Bureau of Prisons — all letting him know that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people who were convicted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The pardons included rioters who injured Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.

“They told me that people I testified against were being released from prison,” Gonell said. “And to be mindful.”

Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump’s supporters broke into the building, echoing his false claims of a stolen election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.

“They have tried to erase what I did” with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. “I lost my career, my health and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”

Five years since the siege, Gonell and some of the other police officers who fought off the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted those pardons. Their struggle has been compounded by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress minimizing the violence that the officers encountered.

“It’s been a difficult year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought near Gonell in a tunnel on the West Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.

“A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.

Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger took over the department six months after the riot. He said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed” to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.

Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence, despite a trove of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.

Trump called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were most violent toward the police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their convictions for harming the officers and breaking into the building “a grave national injustice.”

“I think that was wrong,” Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump’s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Eveland said, Trump's administration should have reviewed every case.

“I’ve had a hard time processing that,” said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped to push them off the Capitol grounds.

The pardons “erased what little justice there was,” said former Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6. He left the force several months afterward.

Hodges and Gonell have been speaking out about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan 6. Since then, they have received support but also backlash.

At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges testified again as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asked the other witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardons of the rioters, including for those who injured Hodges. Three of the witnesses, all called by Republicans, raised their hands.

“I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

It has not just been politicians or the rioters who have doubted the police. It also is friends and family.

“My biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.

“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,” he said.

As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department had to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services when he arrived, he said, and they were put in place.

“The officers who were there and were in the fight — we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed,” Manger said.

Manger, who retired in May, also oversaw improvements to the department’s training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “a great deal safer” than it was when he arrived.

“If that exact same thing happened again, they would have never breached the building, they would have never gotten inside, they would have never disrupted the electoral count,” Manger said.

Pingeon, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways “unrecognizable” from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.

“It was a wake-up call,” he said.