Additional images not used during the trial and reviewed by CNN offer even greater insight and revealed both the rioters’ ferocity and police restraint at the scene.
The radio dispatches the distress of the broadcasting officers while the protesters break the barriers and, eventually, the police lines. As rioters began to invade officers, creating an unsustainable situation, radio waves filled with desperate screams and calls for reinforcement.
“You will need more help here. We don’t have enough people to hold the line,” said a policeman.
“We are getting fire extinguishers thrown at us from above … on the top level of the inaugural deck,” shouted an officer in another clip.
In an order played at the trial, an official exclaims that the protesters had violated the scaffolding. “They are behind our lines!” he said.
The answer, which was not reproduced at the trial, is a calm recommendation that police officers should step back and step back inside if necessary.
“If they are after you, you don’t have enough resources,” said the official.
The videos sometimes show that the protesters were little afraid of the police. About 140 policemen were injured in the deadly January 6 riot, in which a police officer was killed.
Images from the security camera near the town hall show the protesters waving reinforcements to turn the corner. Another video shows more than 150 protesters attacking for a breached entry in just a minute and a half. On another surveillance tape, nine men in matching tactical gear move as a unit within the Capitol, about the same time that the FBI says members of the right-wing militant group “Oath Keepers”, one of several groups that officials federal agents have been involved since the riots, managed to enter.
In a clip, protesters make obscene gestures to the police and insult them, refusing to back down or calm down. There are other videos that capture rioters as they grab police, attack and push aside.
Images of cameras taken on the body during the trial captured police officers shouting “Hold the line!” while fighting rioters surrounding and pushing officers. Another video shows police officers flocking to a Capitol door, beating rebels with batons, while on the other side, rebels strike back with shields.
Another video camera documents how quickly police have also become victims. In a clip shown during the trial, a police officer is fighting with a rowdy man who had grabbed the policeman’s baton. The video seems to show the policeman’s slip – the camera pointing to the sky as if the policeman is lying on his back. A rioter continued to beat the policeman while other officers tried to remove him.
One of the most horrible scenes shows a rioter standing in front of a policeman, grabbing his gas mask and shaking the policeman’s head. The policeman is simultaneously pushed against a door by the crowd of police officers trying to defend the building.
Other photos captured bloody shoe prints on the concrete outside the Capitol.
The multiple angles of the security footage and the body camera also highlight the police’s impressive restraint and suggest that the riot could have been more deadly if the police had acted more aggressively. A rowdy girl, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed as she tried to get in through a window in the Speaker’s Lobby – the corridor just behind the chamber. His death was the only known example of law enforcement becoming a lethal force to try to stop the rebels.
The video and audio used during the House’s impeachment trial were intended to force senators to confront the January 6 violence – which managers argued that Trump was responsible for inciting. The presentation by Chamber administrators showed senators how close the disturbances came to reaching them when they fled the Chamber on January 6.
Trump was acquitted on Saturday, although seven Republicans joined 50 Democrats to vote for Trump’s sentencing, 57 to 43, below the required two-thirds majority.
CNN’s Paul P. Murphy and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.