U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, left, and British filmmaker Nick Quested, are sworn in because the Home choose committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol holds its first public listening to to disclose the findings of a yearlong investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 9, 2022. J. Scott Applewhite, Related Press
Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, testified in the course of the U.S. Home choose committee’s primetime listening to Thursday.
Edwards described defending the Capitol as “a conflict scene. It was one thing like I’d seen out of the flicks. I couldn’t consider my eyes.”
“I noticed buddies with blood throughout their faces. I used to be slipping in folks’s blood,” she mentioned. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”
"It was carnage. It was chaos," Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards mentioned of the Jan. 6 assault in the course of the Home panel’s first public listening to on Thursday. https://t.co/4qalA5SVtWpic.twitter.com/T724Asza6v
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Edwards mentioned though she labored in legislation enforcement, she wasn’t skilled to deal with the battle.
“I’m not fight skilled,” she mentioned. “And that day, it was simply hours of hand-to-hand fight, hours of coping with issues that had been method past any legislation enforcement officer has ever skilled for.”
Edwards mentioned she was exterior the Capitol earlier than the assault when members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys started agitating legislation enforcement. She referred to as her sergeant for reinforcements and was later knocked unconscious.
— January sixth Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022
Edwards mentioned on Jan. 6, 2021, she was referred to as “Nancy Pelosi’s canine,” “incompetent” and “a traitor to my nation” whereas defending the Capitol.
“Really, I used to be none of these issues. I used to be an American standing head to head with different People asking myself what number of occasions — many, many occasions how we had gotten right here,” she mentioned. “I had been referred to as names earlier than, however by no means had my patriotism or responsibility been referred to as into query.”
Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who recorded members of the Proud Boys storm the Capitol, delivers his opening assertion. #January6thCommitteeHearingspic.twitter.com/sgvnlTCu5c
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Edwards testified together with British documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was filming members of the Proud Boys. Quested mentioned earlier than former President Donald Trump completed his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, a whole bunch of Proud Boys began marching towards the Capitol.
“I documented the gang flip from protesters to rioters to insurrectionists,” Quested mentioned. “I used to be shocked on the dimension of the group, the anger and the profanity. And for anybody who didn’t perceive how violent that occasion was, I noticed it, I documented it and I skilled it.”