WATCH: DC Cop Beaten By Trump Mob Lashes Out at Rioters — Including Those Who Kind of ‘Protected’ Him
Washington D.C. Metro Police Officer Michael Fanone — who was beaten by pro-Trump insurrectionists during the attack on Capitol Hill last week — spoke out in a CNN interview with sharp words, even for the members of the crowd who tried to assist him in some fashion.
Officer Fanone’s ordeal is one of several shamefully iconic moments captured on video during last Wednesday’s attack, and in his CNN interview, he told the tale in harrowing yet restrained detail.
“I was just, you know, trying to fight as best I could,” Fanone said. “I remember guys were stripping me of my gear, these riders pulling my badge off my chest. They ripped my radio off my vest, started pulling ammunition magazines from their holder on my belt.”
Halting occasionally as the experience came back to him, the emotion never quite overcoming him, Fanone continued.
“And then some guy started getting ahold of my gun, and they were screaming out ‘Kill him with his own gun!'” Fanone said. “At that point, you know, it was just like self-preservation. How do I survive this situation?”
“And I thought about using deadly force, I thought about shooting people, and then I just came to the conclusion that if I was to do that, I might get a few but I’m not going to take everybody, and they’ll probably take my gun away from me, and that would definitely give them the justification that they were looking for to kill me, if they already didn’t have made that up in their minds,” he said.
“So the other option I thought of was try to appeal to somebody’s humanity,” Fanone continued. “And I just remember yelling out that I have kids, and it seemed to work. Some people in the crowd started to encircle me and try to offer me some level of protection. And they, that provided me with enough time for other officers, specifically my partner Jimmy Albright, enough time to get to me and get me the hell out of there. And back into the west front of the Capitol.”
Officer Fanone revealed that “A lot of people have asked me my thoughts on the individuals in the crowd that helped me or tried to offer some assistance, and I think kind of the conclusion I’ve come to is like, you know, ‘Thank you, but fuck you for being there.'”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
