A number of ranking Black Capitol Police testified before a senate committee Tuesday on the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol when a group of Trump supporters, white supremacists, and militia groups took over the building.
While the expectation of these hearings is for the senate to find out where the missteps were and why there were security failures, the Black officers recounted mistreatment at the hands of white rioters.
One officer, a Black female, recounted having acid sprayed in her face and being called the N-word so many times “it doesn’t even hurt me now.” She went on to acknowledge that her FitBit logged in 4hours of actual exercise activity and that it took weeks for her to recover from the pain her body endured.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) read from statements of others that included the cleaning staff, mostly Black, who expressed feeling degraded from having to clean up urine and feces from the halls of Congress after having just suffered the trauma of fear – they, too, were in the building as the insurrection took place. Klobuchar mentioned the bravery of Eugene Goodman, but also the lament of others who braved the racial slurs hurled at them without commendation.
The feelings of Black officers there that day can be summed up by one statement mentioned by Klobuchar, “Is this America?”