Jim Beam column:Yes, there was riot on Jan. 6

Published 6:37 am Saturday, January 10, 2026

President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, was a date which will live in infamy.”

“Remember Pearl Harbor” became a national slogan.

For Americans, Remembering 9/11 means honoring the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, on Sept. 11, 2001.

And despite efforts at the highest levels of our national government to erase a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot from U.S. history books, it will one day be remembered — as it should be — as a riot that attempted to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.

The Associated Press in a five-year anniversary story said after President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters that day, “A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.”

Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said he got a phone call when Trump pardoned about 1,500 people who had been convicted for their actions at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

“They told me that people I testified against were being released from prison. And to be mindful,” Gonell said

Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps on Jan.6 as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.

“They have tried to erase what I did” with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. “I lost my career, my health, and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”

Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought the rioters, was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.

“I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

“A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.

Former Capital Police Chief Thomas Manger said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also because they didn’t have the equipment and training they needed to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.

Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump’s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case.

“My biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.

Former Capital Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6, left the force several months afterward.

Pingeon was attacked and knocked to the ground as he tried to prevent people from entering the Capitol and said that was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts.

“The real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,” he said.

The AP said there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled.

Thanks to a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, the Senate has agreed to display a plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, rebuffing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana,  who has said the commemorative memorial does not comply with the law.

So, there is finally some government recognition from the U.S. Senate and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina who said, “A lot of people said it was a dark day for democracy.”

Tillis said because of the work of the law enforcement officers, it became a great day for democracy. “We came back and completed our constitutional duty to certify the election,” he said. “We owe them eternal gratitude and this nation is stronger because of them.”

Amen!

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at jim.beam.press@gmail.com.