A member of the Capitol Police uses tear gas on rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A group supporting law enforcement officers who defended the building has published ads ahead of Monday’s inauguration urging members of Congress to oppose presidential pardons of the Capitol rioters. (Photo by Alex Kent/for Tennessee Lookout)
For Aquilino Gonell the inauguration Monday of Donald Trump to a second term as U.S. president will carry bitter ironies.
Before and after winning the election in November, Trump said he would pardon those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob that sought to overturn his 2020 reelection loss.
Aquilino Gonell, a former U.S. Capitol Police sergeant who was injured defending the Capitol during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Courage for America)
Gonnell was a sergeant with the U.S. Capitol Police, one of hundreds of police officers on the scene who sought to protect the building, members of Congress and their staffs during the attack that delayed the vote by hours to certify Joe Biden’s election as president.
“I was assaulted multiple times,” Gonnell told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. “Not because we instigated anything, but because I was defending my colleagues and myself and the Capitol, along with the elected officials” — some of whom, he added, were trying to set aside the result of the 2020 election that Trump lost.
“Both my hands were bleeding on that day, and my left shoulder required surgery,” Gonnell recalled.
He and his fellow police in the building were the targets of violence by the Trump-supporting rioters.
“These are the same people that claim that they support the police, that they respect the rule of law, that they believe in law and order,” Gonnell said. “And with their actions, they showed otherwise.”
Last week, the Courage for America campaign took out newspaper ads urging members of Congress to publicly oppose the pardons. Courage for America formed in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot to spotlight the violence and call attention to members of Congress who they believe have papered over the violence with misinformation and propaganda. The group describes its mission as opposing “an extreme MAGA agenda that puts money and power over the rights and freedoms of the American people.”
In Wisconsin the group published ads in Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point newspapers, both in the district of U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican and Trump supporter.
“We must call January 6th what it was, a domestic terrorist attack of the highest level,” said Courage for America’s spokesperson, Danny Turkel. “Americans must unite and remind our elected officials that violent criminals who assaulted the United States Capitol and threatened our democracy pose major public safety risks to our communities. Every member of Congress, including MAGA Republicans, have a duty to loudly and publicly oppose the pardoning of the January 6th rioters.”
This ad was published Thursday in newspapers in Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point, urging U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden to oppose the pardon of people charged or convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Courtesy of Courage for America)
The full-page ad tells readers to “Exercise Caution” and warns of “violent criminals” who “may soon be present in your community.” It urges people to call Van Orden “and demand he oppose the pardoning of any January 6th insurrectionists.”
Van Orden was first elected to Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District in 2022 and was reelected this fall. On Jan. 6, 2021, however, he was at the Capitol, taking part in the rally that preceded the attack.
Gonnell spoke to the Wisconsin Examiner in conjunction with the newspaper ad.
He reserves his most pointed criticism for members of Congress who were in the building on the day of the riot and who, he says, feared for their lives at the time but have since downplayed or ignored the violence that took place.
“People who organized and orchestrated the attack, and the people who we protected, they tend to tell others and the public that it was not as severe, as grave, as we say,” Gonnell said.
On Jan. 6, however, “the only reason why they made it out was because we saved their asses — and yet, they have contorted themselves to tell the public and tell themselves that it was peaceful.”
He scoffed at Trump’s description of the riot as a “day full of love.”
“If that was a day full of love, they almost loved me to death,” Gonnell said sardonically.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Gonnell said he came to the U.S. legally and enlisted in the military, fighting in Iraq during the Gulf War then pursuing a law enforcement career with the Capitol police, where he served for 17 years.
Because of his injuries, he received a medical pension. The benefit is less than his income before he was hurt, “but is enough for me to be able to sustain myself and pay my bills,” he said.
Legislation was enacted in 2022 to expand benefits for public safety officers or their survivors after suicide or disability as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, but Gonnell said law enforcement personnel involved in defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 have yet to receive any assistance from the program.
He believes his outspokenness about his experience cost him the support of department brass. He’s written a book, “American Shield,” and has a website that tells his story.
Gonnell testified before the Congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack. He believes that the stories he and others in law enforcement who defended the Capitol have told failed to resonate with the voting public because many more officers who were also injured or traumatized that day haven’t come forward.
“They saw how the few of us who spoke out were being treated and they probably said to themselves, ‘Why should I put myself out there? Look how they treat you,’” he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling this past summer that presidents have immunity for acts committed in their official capacity — a decision that delayed the federal felony case against Trump on charges of election interference in 2020 — “is a betrayal,” Gonnell said. “Because of that decision, this person is about to return to power.”
He expects that Trump will go through with pardoning at least some of the Jan. 6 convicts. Reports that members of Congress have invited Jan. 6 riot participants as inauguration guests infuriate him. “They are returning these people to the crime scene,” Gonnell said.
He’s already heard about comments by the president-elect that the rioters deserve an apology. “But he will never apologize to the officers who were defending the Capitol,” Gonnell said.
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