Capitol Police Were Sacrificial Pawns on Jan. 6 – (Part 3)

As I’ve detailed in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, The United States Capitol Police (USCP) frontline officers were purposefully blindsided by the events of January 6, 2021. Their leadership withheld vital intel, as well as information about the legally permitted events to take place that day on the Capitol lawn. Emerging from that day’s riotous melee were both heroes and villains. 

As we have become painfully aware over the last three years, what is force-fed us by our government officials and their sycophant media sources is far too often the exact opposite of the truth.

This story is yet another such example . . .

At 2:58 pm on January 6, 2021, USCP officer Lt. Tarik Johnson, having just completed the evacuation of the House of Representatives chamber, radioed the Command Center:

“All right. Sir, I think the House side is totally clear.”

A couple of minutes later, a USCP officer identifying himself as “Unit Motor 13” radioed a distress call:

“We have about half a dozen officers that are trapped between hundreds of people and the Rotunda doors that cannot get out. The crowd is very hostile, and we need additional officers here, hardened platoons with munitions, to be able to clear these steps. It’s an officer safety issue.”

Having received no response for assistance, Motor 13 issued another distress call:

“. . . on the center Rotunda steps we have approximately, maybe 13 officers up here. None of us are in hard gear. We have a few — we have about a half dozen officers that are trapped between the Rotunda door and the crowd.”

Hearing those messages, Lt. Johnson asked for the operator to patch him direct to Motor 13. Receiving confirmation for his request, Lt. Johnson radioed an instruction to that officer:

“Just walk through the crowd and be friendly and walk out yourself. They’ll probably let you out. And advise the situation as you’re walking through and be nice. But they’ll probably let you out. Just be nice and walk down the steps.”

This might seem an unusual directive, but Lt. Johnson had been moving back and forth through the growing crowd of protestors inside the Capitol — having successfully initiated the evacuation of both the Senate and House chambers — for almost an hour. Something in his demeanor was allowing him to pass through these protestors without eliciting aggression or impedance, even from the more hostile of those filling up the Capitol Building.

By contrast, during this same period, USCP Officer Harry Dunn was having an opposite experience with protestors. This was despite the fact Dunn was carrying an M4 automatic rifle. At 2:39 pm, he was captured on a DC Metropolitan Police officer’s bodycam, screaming at and threatening protestors in The Crypt:

“You’ll be finished, in one f-cking minute. You’re f-cking hurting us. Get the f-ck out of here. Get the f-ck out of here. You’re hurting us. You’re hurting us.”

Dunn was quickly approached by a USCP captain who put his hand on Dunn’s shoulder, imploring him to calm down.

In an interview that I recently conducted with another, unnamed USCP officer who has reached out to me with his own J6 story, he shared that officer Dunn was assigned as his Field Training Officer (FTO) when he graduated from the USCP Academy. Part of the training he received from Dunn was in “de-escalation” tactics when dealing with unruly protestors. In that phone interview, I played for the unnamed officer the audio quoted above. The officer responded:

“Wow. That’s the exact opposite behavior for which he trained me.”

After Lt. Johnson’s suggested behavior for Motor 13 and his group, to successfully extract themselves from their tenuous position in the mob, Motor 13 responded:

“I don’t believe that’s the situation considering a couple of us have already been pepper sprayed by personnel in the crowd. I don’t believe that’s the situation right now.”

Beginning to consider how he would take action to rescue these officers who were “trapped” — in Motor 13’s own words — Lt. Johnson radioed:

“Does anyone have a bullhorn that I could use? I need a bullhorn. Any arrest kits anywhere close and I’ll go get it.”

The Operator responds to Lt. Johnson:

“Simulcasting for 405-J, [Lt. Johnson’s call sign] I’ve got 20 ATF and FBI [tactical units] at the speaker’s lobby, where do you want them?”

Lt. Johnson replies: “South barricade, I’ll meet them at the south barricade.”

Operator: “They’re already at the center, Speaker’s lobby sir.”

Johnson: “Are they in the building already, you said?”

Operator: “They affirm, at Speaker’s lobby. 

Johnson:  “Have them meet me at the Senate door, tell them to come back out of the building, we’re going to go get the officers on the Rotunda steps.”

Minutes go by with no response from the ATF and FBI tactical units. Lt. Johnson again radios a request for a bullhorn:

“I need a Unit to get me a bullhorn. I need the FBI Unit or whatever responding units to meet me at the Senate door. Right now the demonstrators aren’t . . . protestors they’re not hitting anybody, they’re not doing anything to harm anybody. I need a bullhorn, I will use those officers and I will walk through the ground and I will get them myself and we will do so safely. I just need a bullhorn. Can I get any Unit to get me a bullhorn? Bring it outside the Senate door. That’s all I need. A bullhorn and those officers.”

At some point during these radio exchanges, Lt. Johnson managed to acquire and don a red Make America Great Again ball cap. As Joe Hanneman of The Epoch Times reported, “Johnson said wearing the MAGA cap made the crowds more receptive to him, provided a level of safety that he likened to a tactical helmet, and served as a de-escalation tool.”

Frustrated that he’s getting no response from the tactical teams, his additional calls for other units, and the bullhorn, Lt. Johnson again takes matters into his own hands. “Again,” because over an hour earlier Johnson had similar frustration when seeking permission from those in the USCP Command Center to evacuate both the Senate and House chambers, receiving no responses. As he told The Epoch Times:

“I begged for help all day on Jan. 6, 2021, and I feel I was largely ignored . . . There was no response from anybody at the Command Center,” Johnson said. “I say even before I initiated evacuation, I say specifically, ‘We’ve got to start thinking about getting the people out before we don’t have a chance to.’ I heard no response. Then I asked for permission to evacuate. I heard no response.”

Lt. Johnson radios:

“Stand by, stand down, stand down. I’m going to go get them. Stand down.”

Motor 13 responds:

“Just be advised, you may also want to know that there’s a window up here on the Center Rotunda steps, on the north side of the door, a window that has been breached. And if we leave this area they’re going to have free reign to walk into the Capitol from this window.”

Johnson:

“I don’t care if they go into the Capitol; they’ve got 1,500 people in the Capitol already. The only thing I’m concerned about is getting the officers off of the stairs. I just need a bullhorn and don’t . . . thank you I got a bullhorn.”

At this point, Lt. Johnson goes radio silent and encounters two Oath Keepers, one of whom was retired New York Police Sgt. Michael Nichols. Videographer Rico La Starza famously captured this unfolding scene.

From Starza’s video, we can hear the exchange in which the two Oath Keepers identify themselves to Johnson and ask him how they can help. “If you guys can help me save some of the guys. I’d appreciate it if you can help me get aside these people. I just need to get these other officers out. They’re scared. We’re getting beat up, but the people who didn’t go for help are laughing at us,” Johnson said.

Oath Keeper Michael Nichols shows his badge to Johnson and says, “I can do that. I can help,” said Nichols. Johnson then handed Nichols the bullhorn he’d acquired, and Nichols said, “All right, let’s go,” and began heading toward the east stairs of the Capitol Building. 

Johnson reaches the bottom of the stairs and says to Nichols, “Just let me hold onto you.” “We’re Here. We’ve Got You,” Nichols responds, as he takes the lead, with Johnson following — holding the hand of Nichols — and the second Oath Keeper taking the rear position with his hand on Johnson’s back.

At 3:11 pm, the trio ascends the steps approaching the east side Columbus doors as one of them announces, “We’re Oath Keepers. Stand aside. Make a hole. We’re Oath Keepers.” The protestors part and allow them to pass.

31 minutes earlier — at 2:40 pm — the now infamous “Stack One” of Oath Keepers had already entered through those historic Columbus doors. Among this particular group of Oath Keepers were those now convicted of a wide range of felony charges in the first of three Oath Keepers trials. 

This stack included Ken Harrelson, the first of the Oath Keepers to encounter USCP Officer Harry Dunn, who had just raced to the top of the Rotunda stairs carrying his M4 rifle. Highly distressed, Dunn shouted at Harrelson, “Officers down!”

Harrelson: “Really?”

Harrelson and the other Oath Keepers had not seen or even heard of any violence against law enforcement up to this point. Harrelson had been engaged in a security detail, escorting a group of VIPs from The Ellipse, some of whom were scheduled to speak at a stage on the Capitol grounds. An event that had been legally permitted by the Capitol Police weeks before January 6 . . . before the December 19, 2020, announcement of President Trump’s speech at The Ellipse.

Harrelson’s protectees were led from The Ellipse to the Capitol’s east lawn without incident, navigating thousands of rally attendees who were moving toward the Capitol for the many scheduled speeches and marches to take place that afternoon. They arrived several minutes before protesters began breaching those east-side barricades and running toward the Capitol’s steps. Harrelson nor any other Oath Keeper participated in that breach, only moving in the direction of the Capitol after police had been ordered to withdraw and those barricades had been removed. 

Even after taking a position on the Capitol steps, waiting for other Oath Keepers to arrive while singing the National Anthem along with the crowd, Harrelson had not witnessed any violence. When he finally moved with the surging throng through the Columbus doors, there was no longer any resistance from the small group of USCP officers at the doorway.

Dunn continued:

“Yes . . . [inaudible] . . . ‘em out on stretchers. They are f-cking us up . . . [inaudible]. 

Harrelson and three other Oath Keepers immediately took up position between officer Dunn and the more agitated and unruly protestors. They stand side by side, with their backs turned to Dunn, facing the protestors. Publicly available videos capture this crucial event. At one point, Harrelson can be seen using both extended arms to hold back protestors from Dunn’s position at the top of the staircase. Several eyewitness accounts attest to the fact this small group of Oath Keepers de-escalated an extremely volatile situation, as some of those protesters being kept from Dunn were taunting him, calling him a variety of names.

One protestor shouted at Dunn, “You’re a bully. You’re a bully with a badge!” Others can be heard chanting, “Oathbreaker! Oathbreaker.”

Keeping those more hostile elements of the crowd away from Dunn probably saved lives, as the highly-distressed officer was near a breaking point. Within only a few minutes, hard unit officers arrived at the top of the staircase and led Dunn away.

There was one word not heard or captured on video being chanted by any of those protestors. The “N-word.”

In Officer Dunn’s many press interviews, in his FBI interviews, and in his testimony before the January 6 House Select Committee, Dunn often repeated the claim that he had been called the N-word by many protestors. There were multiple variations of the same story he repeated, but in a podcast interview by The New York Times reporter, Michael Barbaro, Dunn explained:

“I can’t fight nobody else. I can’t. I’m tired. And it’s like 30, or 40, 50 people. I can’t fight y’all. Let’s talk, man. So they started talking about how Joe Biden didn’t win the election . . . And I said, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count?

“And then — and then that’s when the girl said, ‘You hear that? This n-word voted for Joe Biden, guys.’ And then the whole 20, 30, 40, 50 people that were there said, ‘this n-word voted for Joe Biden. Boo!’”

Except, in what was probably the most recorded event in human history, with at least one out of three protestors holding their cell phone cameras aloft, there has been no video or audio evidence presented that this racist, N-word chant ever took place on January 6.

In one of my face-to-face meetings with Lt. Tarik Johnson, he was accompanied by another, now-retired USCP officer. (Dunn, Johnson, and this unnamed officer are all black men.) I asked the two about that story Officer Dunn had repeated so many times.

The unnamed officer stopped me, “Are you asking me if anyone called Dunn a n-gger that day?”

“Yes.”

“Never happened,” he resolutely responded.

From another story by The New York Times, it related how many USCP officers were not thrilled with Dunn constantly sharing the N-word story in his many press interviews. “To some, when Dunn talked about the racism he endured on Jan. 6, he made it sound as if it was ‘all about race.’”

During my interview with the unnamed USCP officer first mentioned in this story, he went into further detail about his relationship with Dunn during the 12 weeks in which Dunn was his FTO. Dunn “seemed like a good guy, very professional, and down to earth,” but “he always had a way of bringing racism or black culture into conversations.”

This officer went on to tell me, “We lost our relationship after January 6. He [Dunn] even deleted me from social media. That is the general feeling throughout the force.”

Another telling revelation in my interview with this unnamed USCP officer was the fact he also had a rather low opinion of Lt. Johnson, despite that they don’t personally know one another. This comes from the fact that two officers in his unit were part of the 16 rescued by Johnson and the two Oath Keepers. They had relayed to this officer that Johnson had unnecessarily “endangered them” by escorting them through the crowd of protesters. According to this officer, his unit members did not feel “trapped” or “unsafe” in their location near the Rotunda doors.

What those two “rescued” officers had never heard, though, was the radio transmission from Motor 13 to Lt. Johnson:

“We have about half a dozen officers that are trapped between hundreds of people and the Rotunda doors that cannot get out. The crowd is very hostile and we need additional officers here, hardened platoons with munitions to be able to clear these steps. It’s an officer safety issue.”

I read to this officer the transcript from that radio transmission and he responded:

“Wow. That language changes everything I previously thought.”

(Facts have a way of doing that.)

Only a few moments after Lt. Johnson and the two Oath Keepers entered the east Columbus doors, Michael Nichols can be seen and heard in the video using the bullhorn to command the crowd, “Make a hole. Make a hole.”

The protestors who were packed outside the doorway began to relay the message, “Make a hole. Make a Hole. The cops are leaving. Make a hole.”

Nichols exited first, immediately followed by Johnson and 16 USCP officers. 15 of whom were wearing riot gear. It was an odd sight, seeing hard gear units leaving the interior of the Capitol, rather than staying inside to defend the building. But, a distress call had been sent:

“Officers . . . trapped . . . the crowd is very hostile . . . it’s an officer safety issue.”

Once again, Lt. Johnson had responded accordingly — to the call as it was issued — and void of assistance from ATF and FBI tactical units, or other USCP units. He initiated the rescue of those 16 officers from what he knew to be a dangerous situation, as described to him over the USCP radio channel.

Stunningly, in return for Johnson’s initiative and bravery in the chaos of the moment, and in response to panic calls on their radio comms, he was suspended from the USCP the very next day for “conduct unbecoming.” 

Was it the red MAGA hat he donned to more easily pass through the pro-Trump crowd? Was it the fact he recruited two Oath Keepers for assistance in the rescue? Johnson believes . . . and I quote . . . “They had no choice but to suspend me.”

The more complete story of his 17-month suspension and demotion from lieutenant to private is found in the aforementioned story from The Epoch Times. (I worked with Joe Hanneman for several weeks on that story, but his editors stuck to their strict policy of not granting a contributing byline to non-employees of ET.)

In that article, Lt. Johnson explains the suspension was part of a concerted effort by USCP leadership to silence him for having embarrassed then Assitant Chief Yogananda Pittman for her lack of leadership throughout the entire day of January 6. You can also review Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, as well as my tweetstorm roll-out about Pittman for more detailed information about her lack of action on January 6.

There is a stark difference between the official USCP and mainstream media narratives regarding Lt. Tarik Johnson and Officer Harry Dunn:

Irrefutable evidence of Johnson’s heroism and calm under fire is replete throughout the record of the day. His early attempts at organizing decontamination and triage areas for his chemically-attacked and otherwise injured officers; his rescue of the late Senate Sergeant-ot-Arms Michael Stenger; his having initiated the evacuation of both the Senate and House chambers; and the widely-publicized rescue of the trapped officers from the Rotunda area. All of this was done, despite having received no response or assistance from Assistant Chief Pittman or others in the USCP Command Center. And after making repeated pleas for assistance, direction, and permission for his actions taken.

Officer Dunn — by contrast — publicly exhibited a breakdown in his training, contentiously berating protestors, and displaying highly distressed, erratic behavior. Even when claiming he made effort to de-escalate tensions, Dunn instead recounted a racially-charged event by up to 50 protestors — for which there is no evidence — and about which many of his fellow officers do not believe occurred. Dunn also altered his testimony between two different FBI interviews. The first of which corroborated video evidence of Oath Keepers protecting him from aggressive protestors, and the second a total reversal, in which he then claimed his encounter with the Oath Keepers was instead contentious. 

(This writer has seen the unreleased video and read both FBI “302” documents. All these are still “under seal” by the Dept. of Justice and USCP leadership, which once released — in my opinion — will show that Dunn perjured himself while under oath before the House Select Committee and in the first Oath Keepers trial.

It is also my opinion that Dunn was brought in for his second FBI interview — in August of 2021 — specifically to change the Oath Keeper story he’d presented during his first FBI interview — in May of 2021. There is no apparent reason for that second interview to have been conducted, except to change that specific account. I believe this had to be done in preparation for the government’s prosecution of the Oath Keepers. Dunn’s original version was incredibly damaging to the narrative the government was then building, as they sought to present the Oath Keepers as the ultimate scapegoats for what took place on January 6.)

Despite Lt. Johnson’s heroic behavior on January 6, he was suspended from the force for 17 months, demoted in rank, then subjected to a lengthy, career and reputation-crushing investigation to cover up USCP command failures and malfeasance. During his suspension, he wasn’t allowed to communicate with any other members of the USCP and was not allowed to leave his home during the hours of 8 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday, for the entire duration. Johnson was also denied mental health counseling services, provided by the USCP. He believes they were trying to force him to commit suicide. (He did receive counseling, but he was forced to pay for those therapy sessions himself.)

By contrast, Officer Dunn was elevated to the status of a national hero, receiving special permission from the USCP to give interviews to multiple mainstream media outlets. He received a book deal from Hatchett Books. (Standing My Ground – A Capitol Police Officer’s Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble, is now available.) Dunn has received a Congressional Gold Medal and on the second anniversary of January 6, President Biden awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal. While Dunn has become an outspoken advocate for increased USCP mental health care services, one might readily assume his ongoing counseling and therapies have been and are being covered by the department.

(One final editorial note:

In the first Oath Keepers trial, Judge Amit Mehta aggressively acted to block the defense teams from presenting evidence of Dunn’s conflicting FBI 302s and the video evidence of Johnson’s rescue event utilizing the assistance of those two Oath Keepers. Mehta allowed the government prosecutors to present multiple prejudical videos of violence, barricade breaches, and Capitol Building breaches for which the Oath Keepers took no part, and weren’t even present . . . or even on the Capitol property at the time. 

Mehta then purposefully blocked video presentations and testimony of actions on January 6, which portrayed Oath Keepers in the more favorable reputation they had developed and earned in their 13-year history. As an organization dedicated to supporting law enforcement, there were numerous examples of such behavior on their part that day. 

In that trial, the jury was denied the opportunity to see and hear exculpatory evidence and testimony about those two most important events.)

Rico Starza’s video of USCP Officer Tarik Johnson and two Oath Keepers rescuing 16 trapped police officers from the Capitol Building on January 6: