During a hearing in the House, Officer Harry Dunn recalls being yelled at with the N-word by rioters

A House select committee is investigating the Capitol attack today (July 27), and four officers who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection are appearing before it. Among the officers are Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police officers Daniel Hodges and Michael Fanone and Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell. 

Prior to his testimony, Dunn, who is Black, spoke of the rioters harassing him by hurling “a torrent of racial epithets”. He said one woman with a pink MAGA shirt yelled at him, “This ni**er voted for Joe Biden!” A crowd of 20 or so more people, Dunn wrote, then joined in, yelling, “Boo! Fucking ni**er!” 

“I had never heard anyone call me a ‘ni**er’ while I was wearing the uniform of the Capitol Police,” Dunn said in a statement. Other Black officers shared their stories of racial abuse with me during the days that followed the attempted insurrection on Jan 6.”, said the commanding officer. A police officer told me he had never, not once in his 40-year career, been called a ‘ni**er’ to his face, but that streak came to an end on Jan. 6. One more Black officer subsequently told [me] that insurrectionists confronted him inside the Capitol, telling him, “Put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of ni**er you really are!’” 

The late Capitol Police Brian Sicknick was remembered in a moment of silence during Dunn’s testimony on Tuesday. Additionally, he emphasized the need to protect democracy. 

The rioters, terrorists, and insurrectionists of that night saw democracy in action. “It is still in existence today,” he pointed out. “Democracy is larger than every individual or political party. On that day, you all attempted to disrupt democracy. You all failed.”