It was very moving to see President Joe Biden talk today about the Congressional Gold Medals being awarded to the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for their heroic defense of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Biden spoke slowly, almost painfully. He looked intently at officers and others in the audience during the ceremony in the Rose Garden. At one point he brushed a tear from his left eye.
“We have to understand what happened…We have to face it,” he said.
During and after the signing ceremony, he chatted easily with every person who approached him. He also treated the children of officers on hand as if they were his own grandchildren, looking and speaking to them directly and occasionally putting a hand on one of their shoulders.
The emotional and physical toll the insurrection took on those officers that day is becoming ever clearer. Two police officers died by suicide in the days soon after the event, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. Then, last week, the Metropolitan Police announced that two more officers who had battled the rioters had committed suicide. Officer Kyle DeFreytag was found dead on July 10 and Officer Gunther Hashida was found dead in his home a week ago today.
But the toll goes well beyond the dead. In a January 27 story in The Washington Post, former Kansas City Star reporter Tom Jackman unveiled these statistics…
:: About 65 Metropolitan Police officers were injured, including several who suffered concussions from head blows from various objects, such as metal poles ripped from inauguration-related scaffolding and a pole with an American flag attached. Others suffered swollen ankles and wrists, bruised arms and legs, and irritated lungs from bear and pepper spray.
:: At least 81 Capitol Police officers were assaulted during the siege, according to legal filings that did not detail specific types of injures.
:: Thirty-eight Capitol Police employees, mostly officers and supervisors who responded to the riot, tested positive for Covid-19.
…I have found it increasingly difficult to watch video clips of the pitched battle that day, seeing those officers fighting back against overwhelming odds. It’s come to the point I either avert my gaze or change stations, but I’m sure most of us have put ourselves in the shoes of those valiant officers and wondered what it would have been like and how there would have been no alternative but to fight.
And to hear those officers talk last week to members of the House Select Committee investigating the event brought home with no uncertainty the fragile state of mind many of those officers are now experiencing — and may experience for months or years.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told the committee he was subjected to racial slurs — “fuckin’ nigger,” to be precise — and physically assaulted and has been in counseling since the event.
The House hearing made me so proud of those officers and so grateful for the incredible fight they put up against a mob of crazed and crazy people, many of them thugs — including some female thugs.
At the same time, it is galling that the Capitol Police administrators did not adequately present a strong enough force that day, even though they had information indicating an onslaught might be coming.
It is also galling that after the riot began some high-rankers at the Pentagon — some with ties to Donald Trump — intentionally dragged their feet and delayed sending in troops.
The whole thing was galling and shameful. And who paid the price? The officers on that painfully thin front line, most of whom had never been subjected to anything like that. No wonder many of them will never be the same.
At least now, after today, people will be reminded of those officers’ heroism when they see Congressional Gold medals displayed at the Capitol Police headquarters, the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution.
Biden put it in context today, when he said: “My fellow Americans, let’s remember what this was all about. It was a violent attempt to overturn the will of the American people, to seek power at all costs, to replace the ballot with brute force.”
He also said something that, over time, must drown out the alternate reality the sheep herders at Fox News are continually trying to prod into the minds of their hopelessly lost flock.
“We cannot allow history to be rewritten.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
At a Kansas City UN Day dinner in 1987 the speaker was Elliot Richardson, the Attorney General who, under President Nixon, was asked to fire the Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. Instead, as many old enough to remember can recall, he resigned from Nixon’s cabinet.
I was president of the United Nations Association and had the honor of introducing Elliot, in front of then-mayor Richard Berkley and 500+ attendees. He was so thoughtful, he honored me by mentioning me, saying “As Kelly Gerling said…”
The next day we had a breakfast, and I sat at his table. He mentioned, when asked about the most important quality of a human being for leadership in our world, he said empathy. He explained the magic that comes from occupying the position of another person — feeling their feelings; putting on their views; remembering their personal history; identifying with their pain, suffering and grief. And more…
I think this post perfectly captures that quality of empathy possessed by President Biden and informing and underpinning his leadership in the case of identifying and understanding the experiences of those who were attacked during the 01-06 insurrection to overturn the 2020 election certification.
Thanks Jimmy for such a post.
Eloquent comment, Kelly.
You have got to be kidding me. Where is all this empathy in regard to the thousands of police officers who have had to stand up to BLM, Antifa, and the border crisis.
You seem to love being fed spoonfuls of bullshit as long as it comes from the Socialist Elite.
As for Biden, he is a senile embarrassment to the United States. Anybody that thinks he is actually running the country has their head in the sand clear up to their waist.
One more thing I have to ask. Is it really ok to write out the N-word as long as you are a soggy leftist turd?
You seem to like throwing slurs around. Second time in three posts I have had to call you out for racist slurs.
You should get a job at CNN. You’d fit right in.
The left spends a year burning cities, without consequence, but we are supposed to feel that the Union was threatened by some rednecks walking into a Federal building because they’re upset that the corporate/globalist media coddled a demented racist/rapist and a woman who couldn’t win a delegate on her own into the White House?