capital Police officer Carolyn Edwards described the harrowing scene Tuesday defending the US Capitol building from pro-Trump rioters. January 6 The first primetime hearing of the January 6 selection committee during the House on Thursday.
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” said Edwards, one of two personal witnesses called on the committee convened to testify before an audience on Capitol Hill. ‘I was catching people as they fell. There was massacre. It was anarchy. I can’t even describe what I saw. I never dreamed that as a police officer I would find myself in the middle of a fight.
He said that what he saw was out of a movie.
“What I saw was just a battle scene,” the officer said.
She gave members of the committee—including Chair Benny Thompson and top Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney—a literal jerk-by-shock account of the events, which left her moments unconscious, and later a traumatic brain injury. with.
Capitol Police Officer Carolyn Edwards recalls the painful scene she defended the US Capitol building from pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6 during the first primetime hearing of the House Jan. 6 select committee.
Capitol Police Officer Carolyn Edwards (left) was one of two personal witnesses who testified before the House Select Committee on January 6 during the group’s first primetime hearing. She swore with documentary filmmaker Nick Quest (right)
Video shows Capitol Police Office Carolyn Edwards in a moment she described Thursday night – fainting after throwing a bike rack over her head
Capitol Police Office Carolyn Edwards said she ‘caught the ladder behind me and my chin hit the railing and then – at the time I fainted – but the back of my head hit the concrete stairs behind me’
Capitol Police Officer Carolyn Edwards also saw her colleague, Officer Brian Siknick, who died a day after the Capitol riots, looking ‘ghostly pale’ after some sprinkles during the riots.
Capitol Police Officer Carolyn Edwards arrives for a select committee hearing Thursday night to investigate the January 6 attack
Edwards recalled that a group of protesters led by one of the top Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, had gathered outside the Capitol building near him and became increasingly anti-police.
‘I know when I’m being turned into a villain – and that’s when I turned to my sergeant and I told my understanding of the century. I said, “Serge, I think we’re going to need some more people here,” he testified.
She said Biggs and another proud boy, Ryan Samsell, first broke through the barricade and approached the officers’ bike racks.
Edwards and other Capitol Police officers locked the bike rack.
‘I felt the bike rack come over my head and I was pushed back and my foot caught the ladder behind me and my chin hit the railing and then – that time I blacked out – But the back of my head slid off the concrete stairs behind me,’ she said.
Cheney asked the officer if she had fainted and he answered yes.
‘Yes ma’am,’ Edwards answered Cheney’s second question—has she returned to duty.
Edwards said that she tried to capture the West Front of the Capitol and prevailed there. Officers from Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department showed up to assist, allowing Edwards to fall to the back of the line.
“For a while I started disinfecting people who had sprayed and medically treating those who needed it,” she recalled. ‘So after a while I got back on the line, it was on the house side of the lower west stairs… and behind me was Officer Siknik.’
He said, ‘Suddenly I see movement to my left, and it was the officer Siknik with a head in his hands and he was ghostly pale.’ ‘The moment I thought it was sprayed, and I was worried. My policeman rang the bell.
He said that if Siknik was hit with pepper spray, he would have turned red, not yellow.
Siknik died the next day. His family members were present in the audience on Thursday night.
‘And so I looked back to see what had happened, what had happened to him, and that’s when I got spray in my eyes too,’ he said. ‘I was taken to disarm by another officer, but we didn’t get a chance as I was fired with tear gas shells.’
Cheney then played a video that appeared to appear to have been sprayed by Edwards.
On top of his testimony, he compared the experiences of his veteran grandfather, who fought in the Korean War and ‘lived the rest of his days with bullets and shrapnel in his feet, but never complaining about his sacrifice’. Of ‘.
‘I was told a lot on January 6, 2021 and onwards. I was called Nancy Pelosi’s dog, called incompetent, called hero and villain.
‘I have been called a traitor to my country, my oath and my constitution. Really, I was neither of those things. I was an American standing face to face with other Americans, asking myself, How many, many, many times, how did we get here?
‘I have been called by names before, but my patriotism or duty has never been questioned. I, the one who got up every day, no matter how early or no matter how late in the night, to put on my uniform and defend America’s symbol of democracy. I, who spent countless hours in the scorching sun and freezing snow, to make sure that America’s elected officials were able to do their jobs. I, literally blood, sweat and tears were shed that day defending the building in which I spent countless holidays and weekends working,’ said Edwards.