Fanone and his partner, Jimmy Albright, entered the Capitol through a door on the east side and rushed through the building. They ended up at the West Terrace, where they saw the backs of officers pressing against the mob.
Another officer, dressed in a white uniform worn by upper-level supervisors, an eight-point hat and a trench coat, was doubled over in a hallway, hacking from the bear and pepper spray. Fanone recognized him as Kyle, whom he first met 20 years ago when both were on the Capitol Police force.
Still coughing, Kyle stood and turned toward the officers holding the tunnel: “We got to hold this door.”
Fanone made his way to the front of the line, relieving officers who by then could stay upright only by leaning on someone else.
“It was body against body, just crushing, like a barbaric scene,” Fanone recalled.
He yelled for officers who needed a break. “Nobody was volunteering,” Fanone said, adding that they all pointed at others and said, “This guy needs help.”
Fanone and Albright had started their Wednesday tour as usual at 7:30 a.m. Assigned to a crime-suppression unit in the 1st District, which includes Capitol Hill, they usually patrol in plain clothes. But to increase visibility on a day fraught with tension, they had been ordered to wear their uniforms. Now they were in the thick of things.
Injured officers were passed back through the line, one bleeding from the mouth and nose.
As people in the mob dragged Fanone down the steps, he said he feared he would be stripped and dragged through the Capitol.
“I was being beat from every angle,” he said. “I thought, maybe, I could appeal to somebody’s humanity.”
With other officers swinging clubs, Albright pulled Fanone back inside.
