Jan. 6th Capitol officers condemn political violence, stump for Joe Biden in Harrisburg | WITF (2024)

June 6, 2024 | 10:50 AM

Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Officer Harry Dunn lay the blame for the Jan. 6th riots on Donald Trump and warn he is still calling for political violence.

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF

Two officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots are now stumping for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.

Former Sergeant Aquilino Gonell and Officer Harry Dunn say former President Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy. Both officers testified before the January 6th Select Committee in the U.S. House and have since resigned from the Capitol police force. They attended a news conference at the state Capitol on Wednesday.

“I’m here for those who put their lives on the line to protect our capital on January 6, 2021,” Gonell said. “Those of us in uniform were assaulted and beaten by the mob who believed Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election were stolen.”

Aquilino and Gonell are part of the Biden campaign’s effort to make preserving American democracy a key narrative ahead of the election this fall. Special Counsel Jack Smith with the Department of Justice indicted Trump on four federal charges for his attempt to remain in office despite losing the 2020 election. It is unlikely the case will go to trial before voters cast their ballots.

“Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy and the safety of communities across the country today. He has encouraged and continues to encourage political violence,” Dunn said.

Steven Levitsky, a government and Latin American studies professor at Harvard University, said the officers’ assessments line up with historical studies about democratic backsliding and turns toward authoritarianism.

“Politicians who refuse to accept election results or who in any way condone or encourage political violence are threats to democracy. And Donald Trump has done both,” Levitsky said.

President Biden has never challenged fairly decided election results and has repeatedly condemned political violence, including the riots in which Gonell and Dunn were attacked and which were an attempt to keep the duly elected Biden out of office.

Gonell and Dunn quoted Trump throughout their speeches, focusing on his rhetoric and support for the people who stormed the Capitol rather than on any Biden policies.

“Although most of my physical injuries had healed, the scar of that day remains seared in my mind. My PTSD and moral injuries remain,” Gonell, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic when he was a child, said. “Donald Trump calls the people who injure me and attack our Capitol ‘hostages, patriots, and political prisoners.’”

Conservative politicians have a long history of using militarized language dating back to the height of anti-communist rhetoric but until recently that had not spilled over into violence, according to University of Alabama communications professor A.J. Bauer. Right wing violence associated with white supremacy also has a long history, but those movements were fringe.

“Until more recently, you haven’t necessarily seen what we could call mainstream politicians, right, elected officials who are in high positions of power, calling on conservative grassroots to engage in violent forms of protest,” Bauer said. “I think that is one thing that helps contribute to the fact that we saw a January 6th occur the way that it did.”

When political elites uniformly condemn political violence, it can reaffirm support for democratic institutions, Levitsky said, pointing to the attempted 1981 coup in Spain. The almost 1,400 arrests of people who participated in the Jan. 6 riots — including at least 101 people from Pennsylvania — have likely helped curb political violence since 2021, Levitsky said.

But in the U.S. today, condemnation of anti-democratic political violence is split along party lines.

“The fact that Trump treats them as heroes and promises a pardon helps to legitimize their cause and makes violence more likely in the future,” Levitsky said.