A small box of glass and rubber bullets is all that remains of Jan. 6, 2021.
Sergeant Aquilino Gonell keeps the box in his left coat pocket, close to his heart. He pulled it out for a group of veterans and reporters near the Lackawanna County Courthouse.
Gonell carries it not to remind him of his scars and injuries.
“That is for people that say that nothing happened on January 6,” said Gonell.
That glass came from the first door attackers breached at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Gonell’s pushing legislators to put up a plaque with the remaining broken glass beside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel entrance as a warning.
“We all nearly lost our democracy,” said Gonell.
He spoke alongside former United States Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and local veterans against Donald Trump in Scranton on Wednesday. The officers are traveling across Pennsylvania and several battleground states to rally for President Biden.
Gonell is medically retired from the Capitol Police after suffering severe injuries. He was attacked with an American flag pole, a bat and crushed by rioters, according to Courage for America, a group against an extremist agenda.
The officers visited the state House of Representatives in Harrisburg Wednesday morning. Gonell and Dunn said most Republican legislators left the room and some “hissed” after Speaker Joanna McClinton announced them.
Gonell felt villainized for saving their lives.
“[At] our mere presence, they just walked out and not acknowledged that something happened,” said Gonell. “Y’know, you want to support Donald Trump? Great. Go support Donald Trump. But don’t become so detached from reality that you have to abandon the truth [that] something bad happened.”
Gonell: “It was not political for me”
Corporal Sam Kuchwara said Gonell and Dunn’s struggle reminded him of his own experience coming home to Scranton after serving in Vietnam. He was in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“When we came home from the service, and again, we were doing the right thing that we thought for our country. But when we came home…people hated us,” said Kuchwara. “I couldn’t wait to grow long hair. Because I was identified as a military, baby-killer, all that stuff…they hated us. The VA didn’t even care for us.”
Kuchwara and Gonell agreed, they were both following orders. Gonell said he only considered the lives he promised to protect on Jan. 6.
“We were merely doing our job. We kept our oath. We defended Democrat, Independent, Republican the same,” said Gonell. “We protected Nancy Pelosi the same way as we protected Kevin McCarthy. We protected AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] the same [way] we protected Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, it was not political for us. It was not political for me."
Navy veteran Jim McHugh, Dunmore, never expected to see the Capitol attacked by Americans. He called the MAGA movement’s refusal to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election “bizarre.”
“I always equate [Trump] not doing anything as this attack was going on [with] the old saying, ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’ So, Trump watched it on television while the Capitol burned. And it’s horrible. I just – I couldn’t fathom it,” said McHugh.
Officer Harry Dunn fears America is on the precipice of dictatorship. He sees one thing as potentially stopping another Jan. 6 from happening: accountability. Dunn listed Trump’s previous indictments as examples.
“Nothing has happened that would steer Donald Trump from January 6,” said Dunn. “We’re not talking about Manhattan, we’re not talking about Florida – we’re talking about what happened on January 6 at the Capitol."
He referred to the case, Trump v. United States, which would decide whether former presidents have total immunity from criminal prosecution for actions committed while president.
Trump was also convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to alter the 2016 election on May 30.
