Alexandria natives describe experiences during Capitol Hill riot

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Alexandria natives describe experiences during Capitol Hill riot
The U.S. Capitol Building. (File Photo)
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By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

Henry Rodgers was supposed to be in the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Rodgers, senior congressional correspondent for the Daily Caller and an Alexandria native, intended to cover Congress’ joint session that would certify President-elect Joseph Biden’s electoral college victory. However, very little about Jan. 6 went as expected. Instead of starting the day covering the joint session, Rodgers got held up recording a T.V. appearance.

Instead of the joint session going ahead as planned, members of Congress were put into lockdown, as a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters marched on the Capitol. Spurred on by comments made by the president at a rally earlier in the day, rioters overwhelmed Capitol police and violently stormed the Capitol. The ensuing chaos left six people dead, including two police officers.

Watching the crowd march past his office, Rodgers decided to run headlong into the mob and start filming the shocking scene that was unfolding around him. The energy of the crowd shifted the closer it got to the Capitol, as chants of “USA” devolved into violent, expletive laden shouts, Rodgers said.

“What I saw was the most horrific and vile stuff that I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Rodgers said.

“I saw that there was this group of probably 50 to 100 people combating with the police, trying to break through a police line,” Rodgers continued. “Then I finally witnessed that police line break and [the rioters] make it onto the Capitol steps and then [try] to make their way inside. That was when I was like, ‘This is terrifying.’”

The videos Rodgers shot for the Daily Caller depict a chaotic scene. He had been hit with tear gas that Capitol police had shot into the crowd and disoriented by the smoke bombs and pepper spray that rioters were firing back at police officers.

When the rioters finally breached the police line and stormed the Capitol, Rodgers said his stomach dropped. He said he never thought that rioters could make it into the Capitol, considering the response from Capitol police and the National Guard at protests he had covered in the past.

“I don’t think [the police] were prepared for this many people, and I don’t [think] they thought they were actually going to storm into the Capitol,” Rodgers said. “… They should have been more prepared.”

The D.C. Capitol Police’s response has been called into question in the days since Jan. 6, leading to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s resignation and the suspension of two officers for their behavior during the riot.

Once a part of the mob entered the Capitol, Rodgers left the scene and started reaching out to members of Congress, Congressional staffers, fellow reporters and other contacts who were in a state of lockdown inside the Capitol. Both the House and Senate sessions had been put on pause, as Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress were escorted elsewhere.

Amid the chaos, many people couldn’t even tell Rodgers where they were located. Some people were hiding under tables, scared for their lives, unsure what the mob would do once it breached the Capitol, Rodgers said.

Another Alexandria native, Sam Cloud, was also caught up in the chaos that erupted Jan. 6, although he was not in the Capitol building. Cloud, a staffer for a Republican congressman, was in his congressman’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building as the mob marched on the Capitol. Cloud was monitoring both the House and Senate sessions on CSPAN when he started to get texts from fellow staffers that the mob of Trump supporters was marching to the seat of American Congressional power.

“Next thing I know – I’ll never forget it – I was watching the Senate at the time and Sen. [James] Lankford [R] from Oklahoma was giving his remarks and there seemed to be some commotion behind him,” Cloud said. “They ended up gaveling out and Lankford’s staffer ran right up to him and his mic was still hot. He said something like, ‘They’ve gotten in the building.’ At that point, I was like, ‘Woah, what did I just hear?’”

Cloud and his fellow staffers quickly turned their attention to the House and attempted to get in contact with their representative. For a short time, Cloud said he lost communication completely with his boss, as members of the House were escorted into offices and put under lockdown.

For Cloud, the rest of the day was largely experienced through his phone screen. Locked safely in his office, social media and texts became his window into the Capitol. Through it all, Cloud, like a lot of Americans, was left wondering, “How could this happen?”

“[There were] just a lot of looks of, ‘Is this really happening?’” Cloud said. “Joint sessions are usually when there’s the most security on the hill, especially when the vice president’s there. … It was really weird to see that something like this could happen so quickly during this type of joint session.”

It was only around 5 p.m. on Jan. 6 that the D.C. National Guard and FBI SWAT were deployed to the Capitol, with CNN reporting that Pence played a key role in the deployment, not the president.

According to Cloud, Congressional staffers have been frustrated and disappointed in the preemptive steps that were taken to mitigate the threat posed by the rioters, a threat that staff was aware of in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

“… A lot of staffers are upset because we knew that this rally and march was going to happen,” Cloud said. “They had sent emails to us Monday and Tuesday advising offices not to come to work if you don’t have to, to not let anyone in the building or if you see anything suspicious to let Capitol police know. So, to see the fence go up the next day it was like, ‘Where was that?’”

Despite the red flags, Cloud decided to come in to work on Jan. 6 because of his passion for the job and the importance of the joint session.

“I like my job, I love what I do, and I knew that was going to be a pretty important day,” Cloud said.

The events on Jan. 6 have left their mark on those who experienced them firsthand. For those like Cloud who were trapped in lockdown last week and those like Rodgers who were caught in the mob, the shock and fear of the day still linger.

“For me, I’m definitely still in shock and not wanting to feverishly dramatize everything I saw that day but also condemn it and work to make sure it never happens again,” Cloud said. “That has no place in our democracy and, as a Hill staffer, I never thought when I graduated college that I would see something like that play out.”

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