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Almost emotionless, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards sat in front of a House of Representatives committee on Thursday night, Jan. 6, watching dramatic videos of harrowing moments as she fought the pro-Trump mafia.
The horde stormed the bicycle racks barricades and four of its Capitol police colleagues. Edwards was pushed back sharply, receiving a concussion that still affects her. The mob then moved to the next line of police defense, and Edwards did the same, continuing the fight.
“It was something I had seen in the movies,” Edwards told the committee and the national television audience in prime time during testimonies that were both compelling and shocking. “I could not believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground who were bleeding. They were vomiting. … I saw friends with blood on their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. “
With her testimony, the 31-year-old Edwards became for many the first police officer to appear on the national stage to discuss the viciousness of the attack on the Capitol. She was one of about 140 police officers from the Capitol and the District of Columbia who were injured in the riot. Other officers have testified before, but not at this stage, the first of a number of public hearings organized by the commission as it seeks to build a case where former President Donald Trump and his allies have conspired to stage a coup.
The House committee intertwined her responses to MP Liz Cheney with a video taken from various sources, and Edwards provided very clear memories of how the crowd approached her, insulted her, harassed her, and eventually made her way to the Capitol.
Edwards joined the Capitol Police in 2017 after starting a career in public relations. She is from Atlanta and graduated from the University of Georgia.
Edwards was one of the first officers to come out and criticize her department for its lack of training, speaking as a member of the officers’ union.
In February 2021, Edwards told USA Today that officers from her division had asked commanders on January 5, 2021, to deal with armed rebels and had been told there was no plan. She told the newspaper that she had been trained in riots but was deployed without equipment, a common problem for Capitol police officers that day. A school bus full of riot gear was locked and could not be opened by enraged staff, an investigation later revealed.
Edwards also noted that Capitol police leaders had warned of the impending storm, but did not inform frontline officers. Although Deputy Chief Yogananda Pitman told Congress that there was “a strong potential for violence and that Congress is the goal,” staff were unprepared and help was not called for quickly enough.
In her testimony Thursday night, Edwards recounted how a group of proud boys wearing orange knit hats approached her and four other officers at the Circle of Peace barricade. None of the officers wore protective equipment. She named Joseph Biggs, a leader of the far-right group who faces federal charges of rebellion, as the man who stood up to her and stirred up the crowd.
Edwards remembered the huge crowd turning against the police and insulting them, prompting them to offer their colleague to call for reinforcements.
“I know when they turn me into a villain, and then I turn to my sergeant,” she said. “And I said underestimating the century. I said, “Sergeant, I think we’re going to need a few more people down here.”
The gathering crowd began to press against the barricades, and a video released by the commission showed police struggling to hold on to bicycle racks.
Edwards said one of the bike racks hit her in the head and she is seen in the video falling on one of the stone steps.
“I felt the bike rack coming to the top of my head and I was pushed back, my foot hit the ladder behind me and my chin hit the railing and I was dead, but the back of my head hit the concrete stairs behind me. “She told the commission.
When she regained consciousness, Edwards said the “adrenaline rush in” and she rushed to support other officers who had been pushed out by the rebels.
The video shows her looking at her colleague, Officer Brian D. Siknik, who was apparently sprayed in the face with an irritant. Then Edwards was sprayed in the face. Siknik would later have two strokes and die.
“When I stayed behind that line, I can just remember how my breath caught in my throat, because what I saw was just a military scene,” Edwards said. “It was a massacre. It was chaos. “
Edwards began his testimony with respect to his grandfather, a Marine who was wounded in the Korean War battle at Chosin Dam, saying he “answered the call at great personal cost.” She said he “lived the rest of his days with bullets and shrapnel in his legs, but never once complained about his victim. I would like to think that he will be proud of me. Proud of his granddaughter, who stood her ground that day and continued to fight despite being wounded, as he had done many years ago.
When she finished testifying, Edwards and Siknik’s longtime partner, Sandra Garza, shared a long hug. Legislators in the panel approached a number of officers who had witnessed the uprising – and the hearing – and thanked them for their service and presence.
Isaac Stanley-Becker and Jacqueline Alemanni contributed to this report.
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