NPR reports:

For the millions of Americans who watch the presidential inauguration every four years, the Lower West Terrace Tunnel of the U.S. Capitol is a familiar site.

The incoming president walks through that tunnel and on to the inaugural platform, before taking the oath of office.

On Jan. 6, 2021, it was a crime scene – the site of a bloody, hourslong struggle between law enforcement and a mob of supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.

“My fellow officers and I were punched, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants by a violent mob,” Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell testified to Congress about his experience in the tunnel on Jan. 6. “I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself: ‘this is how I’m going to die – defending this entrance.'”

Now, Trump is poised to walk through that same tunnel again as president-elect, after he successfully campaigned on a message that people convicted and charged of crimes for their actions on Jan. 6 are “political prisoners” and “patriots” who deserve presidential pardons. Trump opened his first rally of the presidential campaign with a rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” recorded from a jailhouse phone by Jan. 6 defendants, including an alleged “Nazi sympathizer” and others accused of violent assault. During the campaign, he referred to Jan. 6 as a “day of love.”

For Gonell and other victims of that day’s violence, Trump’s electoral victory was a gut punch.

“It feels sometimes, like, what did I risk my life for?” Gonnell told NPR.

Gonell says his injuries from Jan. 6 were so severe that he needed to undergo two surgeries, and ultimately had to retire from the Capitol Police. He’s watched as Republican lawmakers, some of whom he defended from the rioters, have downplayed the severity of the violence.

“All these elected officials, they don’t care about the officers – people like myself that put their lives on the line to protect them,” he said. “We did our job and gave them the time to escape, to evacuate the building. And they seem to have forgotten the fear that Donald Trump’s mob made them feel.”

Gonell immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. He later served in the Army Reserve, became an American citizen and deployed to Iraq before joining the Capitol Police. After the attack on the Capitol, he spoke out about his experience as a witness in Congress and at criminal trials, and in a memoir called American Shield.

“I’ve done everything that was asked of me,” Gonell said. “I loved this country and it feels like the country doesn’t love me back.” [Continue reading…]