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Harry Dunn, other former US Capitol police talk threats, 'revisionist history' of Jan. 6 attack

Sam Janesch, The Baltimore Sun on

Published in News & Features

Four law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, met with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and legislators Thursday in Annapolis, saying afterward that they’re continuing to fight back against both attempts to rewrite history and ongoing threats to themselves and their families.

“Every day that Donald Trump is in office, every day that MAGA Republicans exist as elected members of our government, my family is not safe,” said Michael Fanone, one of the most outspoken former or current officers who responded to the attack.

Trump, on the day he returned to the White House in January, issued a sweeping pardon of the rioters who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Maintaining the false claim that widespread voter fraud tipped the election to Joe Biden, Trump said the people charged or convicted had been treated unfairly.

Multiple people who assaulted Fanone — causing traumatic brain injury and a heart attack — and other officers were among those pardoned.

“Our law enforcement institutions, those that we have depended on for centuries to keep us safe, to hold accountable criminals, failed us, and they really failed us miserably,” said Fanone.

Now a former Metropolitan Police Department officer, Fanone said his family has been subjected to death threats, bomb threats, swatting incidents and physical confrontations since he testified and began speaking out about his experience. He said he would continue speaking out, even if he’s lost much hope of his situation changing while Trump and his allies are in office.

Harry Dunn — who also joined the meetings at the State House — is among the vocal former officers who have tried to make a mark on the Republican-controlled Congress directly.

Dunn left the Capitol Police force in late 2023 to run for a congressional seat covering most of Howard and Anne Arundel counties. He came in second in a crowded Democratic primary won by now-U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth.

 

Calling Trump a “wannabe dictator” and House Speaker Mike Johnson an “obstructionist” on Thursday, Dunn railed against what he called attempts at “revisionist history” in recent months. He pointed to news reports that the U.S. Mint website temporarily removed information about Congressional Gold Medals awarded to officers who responded to the attack and about a plaque that was intended to be placed in the Capitol but that has not been put up yet.

“They are attempting to rewrite it, and as long as they’re continuing to do that, you’re going to see us stubborn SOBs fighting back,” Dunn said.

Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges joined Dunn and Fanone at the State House, which included a unanimously approved resolution in the state Senate that honored them.

Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Montgomery County Democrat, in an emotional moment introducing them in the Senate, described the brutality they faced and said their work had saved lives.

“It’s because of heroes like these four and others, some of whom survived and some of whom did not, that our Capitol was mostly unscathed,” Kagan said.

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©2025 The Baltimore Sun. Visit at baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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