Police release images of suspect who used riot shield to push DC police officer against doorway
Police release images of suspect who used riot shield to push DC officer against doorway during US Capitol riot while explaining the only reason cops didn’t shoot rioters was because they’d have lost the firefight
- Daniel Hodges, 32, was filmed being crushed between doors at the Capitol
- He was only able to escape when a colleague pulled him back from the mob
- He told Washington Post he and his colleagues had been seizing guns ‘all day’
- Hodges said police knew the mob was mostly armed and that they would win ‘in a firefight’
- Other cops told how the mob moved in ‘military formations’ using hand signals
- The only person shot was Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was killed trying to break into the Capitol building
- Three rioters died January 6, one was trampled and two suffered heart attacks
- Officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher
- Another cop committed suicide days after the riot
Police in Washington D.C. have released images of a suspect they believe to be responsible for deliberately crushing an officer in the doors of the Capitol.
Daniel Hodges, 32, was filmed being squeezed between the doors at the West Terrace at the Capitol Building last Wednesday.
On Friday night, the Metropolitan Police Department shared two photos of the man thought to be behind the callous act.
‘You’ve seen images of Ofc Hodges crushed in the doorway during the insurrection at the US Capitol. Now we need your help finding the suspect who used a police shield to pin him against the door jam. Have info? Call the FBI’s Tipline,’ the Department tweeted.
‘During the insurrection at the United States Capitol, the suspect assaulted and used a clear police shield to pin MPD Officer Daniel Hodges in a door jam,’ a police statement read.
In one viral video, Hodges can be seen pinned in a glass doorway between officers and the crowd, as rioters strip his gas mask from his face and beat him with his own police-issued baton. One rioter tried to gouge his eyes.
As he choked on tear gas, he is seen on video gasping for air to call out for help.
Enough police were eventually able to push through the melee to extract him.
Daniel Hodges, 32, was filmed being squeezed between the doors at the West Terrace at the Capitol Building last Wednesday
Hodges has since revealed that the only reason he and other officers did not open fire on the crowd was that they had more guns and he knew the police would lose in a firefight.
He has since told how he thought he was going to be permanently disfigured or die in the stampede.
He also explained why cops didn’t open fire on the mob to try to get them under control, saying that he and his outnumbered comrades knew that most of the mob had their own weapons.
There were some 15,000 people in the mob of rioters and fewer than 1,000 cops.
Had gunfire broken out, Hodges said the mob would have won.
‘I didn’t want to be the guy who starts shooting, because I knew they had guns — we had been seizing guns all day.
‘And the only reason I could think of that they weren’t shooting us was they were waiting for us to shoot first.
‘And if it became a firefight between a couple hundred officers and a couple thousand demonstrators, we would have lost,’ he told The Washington Post.
It’s unclear how many weapons were seized in total.
The Department of Justice has opened 275 cases but only 98 people have been arrested.
The only person shot was Ashli Babbitt. She was killed as she tried to break her way it into the Senate. No one else was killed by gunfire.
These are some of the weapons found in homes of the rioters arrested so far. Officer Hodges said he knew most of the crowd was armed
There were some 15,000 MAGA rioters against fewer than 1,000 cops
One cop – Brian Sicknick – was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and later died in the hospital.
Another cop committed suicide days after the riot.
Three other MAGA rioters died; a woman who was trampled in the Rotunda and two men suffered heart attacks.
On Friday, federal prosecutors in Arizona filed documents claiming some of the mob planned to capture and kill members of Congress.
Other cops also described how they were beaten, sprayed in the face with bear mace and yelled at.
Michael Fanone, 40, a father-of-four, told how the rioters tried to grab his gun and yelled: ‘Kill him with his own gun!’
‘We weren’t battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel. We were battling 15,000 people.
‘It looked like a medieval battle scene,’ Fanone said. He and his colleagues rushed to the Capitol after hearing an urgent call for back-up on the radio.
He was among the few cops who tried to defend the West Terrace.
When he got there, he was stunned by the scene.
Fanone starting trying to fend the crowd off. He yelled to his colleagues: ‘Dig in! We got to get these doors shut.’
At the time, they were unaware that protesters had already breached the Capitol and were inside.
He was dragged from the doors into the mob. Photographs show him screaming as he fights against them.
On Thursday, Fanone revealed that some of the rioters tried to grab his gun. He said he feared they would shoot him and instinctively started pleading with them not to kill him.
The crowd sprayed bear mace at the officers, which is far stronger than any other type of mace
The cops are shown washing their eyes after being maced by the MAGA mob
He says he was only spared because he pleaded with them not to kill him for the sake of his children.
‘Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, ‘Kill him with his own gun. So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody’s humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work.’
After he did that, he says some of the rioters protected him from the others.
‘Thank you, but f*** you for being there,’ he said to those rioters who shielded him.
Fanone said that his colleagues had mace sprayed in their faces, had their batons stolen and were then beaten with them.
‘We were getting chemical irritants sprayed.
‘They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those,’ he said.
He says that it was impossible to fight the crowd.
‘It was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side. It was difficult to offer any resistance when you’re only about 30 guys going up against 15,000,’ he said.
Commander Ramey Kyle of the DC Metropolitan Police was among the cops who rushed to help after the situation started escalating.
He told The Washington Post: ‘I was fairly certain we were going to be overrun.
‘I scouted out an area we could fall back to another fighting position.’
Kyle recalled how the cops fought the protesters off, step by step.
‘We all just made a decision. We weren’t going to let these individuals in the building. No matter what,’ he said.
They were unaware at the time that other doors had been breached.
‘We all believed we were fighting for our lives. We believed at the time that we were the only door in jeopardy of being breached,’ Kyle said.
Other cops say many in the mob used military strategies to take them on.
He added that the crowd used so much mace and tear gas that it was ‘impossible to breathe’ without a gas mask on.
‘Everything they did was in a military fashion,’ said Cmdr. Robert Glover of the D.C. police told The Post.
He said they used hand signals and waved at each other before moving forward in ‘military formations’.
