The Justice Department released the longest video yet from the government showing clashes between rioters and police at a U.S. Capitol tunnel on Jan. 6.
The three hours of footage, released after news outlets sued for access, do not have sound but offer a vantage from above via a security camera in the Lower West Terrace where officers blocked rioters from entering the building.
Police retreated to the tunnel before rioters advanced, but officers later regrouped and pushed them back out.
CNN, one of the news outlets that sued for access, noted rioters "pushed police further back, jabbing at them with flag poles and hitting them with a baton, spraying pepper spray, taking riot shields and crushing an officer in a door all while banging against the walls and cheering as they filmed the assault on their phones."
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Michael Fanone, a Metropolitan Police officer, was dragged into the crowd, beaten, and suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury. He recently resigned and joined CNN as an on-air contributor.
"What is clear from this video is that this was not a spontaneous uprising. This was a planned event. People came armed for battle. And that is quite apparent in this video," Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor and host of the podcast That Said With Michael Zeldin, told CNN on Saturday.
Violent acts were also committed by law enforcement, including one officer who was seen poking and slapping a rioter with a stick.
Joseph McBride, an attorney for several people charged in connection to the Capitol riot, said a woman named Victoria White, from Rochester, Minnesota, could be seen getting beaten by police.
"She is hit approximately thirty-five times over the course of 4 minutes and 30 seconds, while appearing to be begging for mercy the entire time," the attorney said, according to the Gateway Pundit. "She is hit with the baton while facing away. She is hit with the baton while facing forward. She is speared and poked with the baton about the face so as to inflict maximum pain. She collapses more than once and is stood up by the officers only to be maced and beaten again. At some point, White-shirt puts away his baton, not because he is showing mercy because he has a clear avenue to her face. As such, he unloads on the defenseless woman punching her five times in five seconds, directly in the face, with all of his might."
Victoria White was pushed into the Tunnel. She was then BRUTALLY BEATEN by OFFICER WHITE SHIRT. Dozens of baton blows. Punched in the face 5x. A defenseless woman, she is PULVERIZED for wearing a TRUMP Hat. Thank you @julie_kelly2 for speaking truth to power. @DarrenJBeattie pic.twitter.com/6hMCWa7n3V
— Joseph D. McBride 🔥✝️🔥 (@McBrideLawNYC) December 23, 2021
Trump supporter Rosanne Boyland, whom initial reports claimed was crushed to death by the pro-Trump mob, died of an accidental drug overdose, according to the D.C. medical examiner.
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More than 700 people have been charged in connection to the Capitol riot, which disrupted lawmakers as they conducted the tally of electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election. Among those charged was White, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges.
Meanwhile, the select House committee investigating the Capitol riot is looking into the circumstances that surrounded Jan. 6. So far, dozens of people have been subpoenaed, and members say hundreds more have cooperated with the inquiry. Two individuals involved in the tunnel chaos, Devlyn Thompson and Robert Palmer, have been sentenced to time behind bars after each pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon, according to CNN.
One line of inquiry of the panel, which focuses on why it took so long for then-President Donald Trump to issue a video calling on his supporters to stand down, could lead to recommending the DOJ open a criminal investigation against Trump. “It appears that he tried to do a taping several times, but he wouldn’t say the right thing,” Chairman Bennie Thompson told the Washington Post.