- Michael Fanone, a police officer in Washington, DC, said he was attacked by a pro-Trump crowd during the January 6 uprising on the United States Capitol.
- Fanone, who suffered a mild heart attack, told The Washington Post that he was dragged up the Capitol stairs, shot with a stun gun and struggled to remain conscious.
- “We have one!” Fanone said the rioters screamed. “Kill him with your own weapon!”
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The pro-Trump crowd that attacked the United States Capitol on January 6 killed one police officer and another committed suicide shortly thereafter. But the death toll could have been higher, with a policeman telling The Washington Post that the protesters wanted to kill him too.
“We have one!” Michael Fanone, a DC Metropolitan Police officer, said the crowd screamed after he was dragged down the Capitol stairs, hit by a stun gun and suffered a mild heart attack. “Kill him with your own weapon!”
In an interview with The Post published on Thursday, Fanone said he ran to the Capitol after hearing dispatchers declaring an emergency.
When he got there, he realized that the police were at a great numerical disadvantage.
“We were fighting 15,000 people,” he said. “It looked like a medieval battle scene.”
According to the Post, Fanone barely survived that battle. A riotous grabbed his helmet and dragged it along the poles where others swarmed over him, attacking Fanone and another officer with metal pipes and a flagpole amid shouting “USA”.
In total, nearly five dozen DC police were injured by protesters during the insurrection, according to the Post.
“They were overthrowing Capitol, the seat of democracy,” commented Fanone.
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