Two years after the Jan. 6 riot, President Joe Biden on Friday honored a group of Americans who defended democracy during that period, and House lawmakers gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol alongside families of police officers who died as a result of the insurrection.
Biden presented the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 state and local officials, election workers and police officers, plus posthumous awards for three other officers who died after the Capitol attack: Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith.
The medal is reserved for Americans who “have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country, or their fellow citizens.”
“You held the line that day,” Biden said of the officers. “And what was on the line was our democracy. And history will remember your names.”
The president granted medals to officers who were injured during the attack: Caroline Edwards, Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges, plus Eugene Goodman, who led a group of rioters away from where lawmakers were located on Jan. 6.
Biden described how the angry mob at the Capitol “beat” Fanone and threatened to “kill him with his own gun,” and how Gonell was “speared” by an American flag pole.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say America owes you,” the president told them.
He also presented medals to local elections workers and officials, including Rusty Bowers, the former Arizona House speaker who testified to lawmakers investigating Jan. 6 that he received harassment at his home and repeated threats as he refused to reject the 2020 election results.
Others went to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, Georgia elections workers who have received threats due to a false claim about vote counts perpetuated by former president Donald Trump.
Michigan Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson and former city commissioner on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections Al Schmidt were also honored.
“We face an inflection point in our nation’s history. And January 6 is a reminder that there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy,” Biden said. “Every generation is required to earn it, defend it, protect it.”
Earlier in the day at the Capitol’s steps, the families and friends of officers who died after Jan. 6 read their names aloud, with the sound of a bell to mark each one: Sicknick, Liebengood, Smith, Gunther Hashida, Kyle DeFreytag.
The children of Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans, who died in April of 2021 when someone rammed a car into a barricade outside the Capitol, also spoke his name.
Then, for 140 seconds, members bowed their heads in silence in honor of what Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said were 140 officers seriously injured that day.
“The violent insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and attempted to halt the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of our republic. They failed,” Jeffries of New York said Friday.
“They failed because of the bravery and valor of the United States Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department officers who fought heroically to defend our democracy.”
No Republicans spoke at the event Friday morning, though later in the day on the House floor, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle gave Capitol Police a lengthy standing ovation after Rep. Mike Garcia, R- Calif., thanked the force.
“Our police also serve with that pure and selfless intent. They do it every day, and we should thank them every day,” he said.
Nancy Pelosi, now former speaker of the House, spoke on the steps as well, and she thanked the families “for considering us worthy to share your grief, to honor your loss.”
“We thank them for their sacrifice, for their patriotism,” she added of the fallen officers. “And our tribute is also to those who suffered psychologically and otherwise, protecting our democracy.”
Video made public in the fall by the House select committee to investigate the riot showed Pelosi huddled together with Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-K.Y., as they hid for safety in rooms in the Capitol, urging top Trump administration officials and law enforcement to take action.
The rioters trapped other House lawmakers in the chamber on that day and delayed the counting of states’ electoral ballots for hours.
At least nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, died during or after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other Trump supporters who authorities said suffered medical emergencies.
Two police officers died by suicide in the days that immediately followed, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.
The Metropolitan Police announced months later that two more of their officers who had responded to the insurrection, Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida, had also died by suicide.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
