U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was beaten with a flagpole during the Jan. 6 insurrection, told CNN Thursday he’s insulted that Republican lawmakers “don’t have the courage” to investigate the attack.
“They demand something from us that they’re not willing to do [themselves], which is sacrifice their livelihood,” Gonell told CNN’s Don Lemon.
Gonell noted that if someone broke into a house, damaged its contents and threatened the people who lived there, “Wouldn’t you want to know who did this? Who coordinated this? Because that’s exactly the same thing that happened in our Capitol. I work there. I take that job very seriously.”
Last week, Senate Republicans blocked an effort to establish a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. GOP lawmakers still loyal to former President Donald Trump have also continued to whitewash the deadly events that took place that day.
The proposed bipartisan inquiry was approved in the House by all Democrats and 35 Republicans.
Gonell said he did not think about politics while trying to protect people.
“We just respond and do our jobs to the best we can with the tools we have. So when people denied that this happened, it’s insulting. It’s a betrayal,” he said.
In a separate interview with CNN, Gonell described the harrowing violence he experienced, saying there were moments when he thought he might die. His hand was sliced open during the melee and he needed surgery on his right foot in the weeks after the attack.
Gonell immigrated from the Dominican Republican when he was 12 and was deployed to Iraq as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve in 2003, CNN reported.
The worst thing he was called by the rioters was a “traitor,” he said.
“I went overseas to protect our homeland from foreign threats, but yet here I am battling them in our own Capitol.”
Gonell is one of several U.S. Capitol and Washington, D.C. police officers to speak out about what they experienced during the insurrection.