District of Columbia Officer Michael Fanone and the others who responded to the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, held the line in more ways than one. Sometimes that line can be convoluted and complicated and sometimes it is pretty straightforward.
I just finished reading “Hold the Line. The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul” by Fanone and John Shiffman, which recounts Fanone’s career and the events surrounding the insurrection.
My first takeaway was how just grateful I was for Fanone’s bravery in holding the line and for speaking out in defense of our democracy ever since. My second thought was just how complicated, nuanced and spot on Fanone’s thoughts on law enforcement and accountability are.
On Jan. 6, Fanone suffered a concussion, fell unconscious, and his heart briefly stopped. Rioters ripped his badge off, took his radio and tried to seize his weapons. One could be heard shouting, “Kill him with his own gun!”
Fanone sums up the moral and professional dichotomy well with: “What happened to me on Jan. 6th is important. But my experiences before and after that day are equally relevant. They represent two of the most pressing issues we have as a nation: what police reform should look like, and how we choose to remember an attempted coup d’état.”
In our current tribal and hyperpartisan milieu, you can believe one of those ideas, but not both.
Fanone declared that he voted for Donald Trump with enthusiasm in 2016, saying Trump had great timing for launching his campaign in 2015 about the same time that racial justice protests grew into a national movement. “Most cops, reeling from the new dynamic, including demonizing and degrading rhetoric level against police, turned to the comfort food offered by Donald Trump and Fox News.”
Fanone describes his subtle transformation and explains the complex issues of policing in America: the consequences of race, drugs, guns and poverty that officers must every day. But the trauma of Jan. 6 is woven throughout.
Fanone notes, “I don’t believe that police officers are above reproach, but I also don’t believe that all police officers are evil. In fact, I think it’s one of society’s most honorable, selfless professions. Some of the ‘Defund the Police!’ rhetoric on the left is moronic. At the same time, I see people on the right saying ‘We love the police, we just don’t love the police who responded on Jan. 6th.’”
Fanone isn’t alone. Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger rejected the comparison between the Jan. 6 insurrection and the urban riots and looting of 2020. As an Air National Guardsman, Kinzinger was deployed for the summer riots. Kinzinger noted, “Not once did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on Jan. 6th. There is a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime, even grave crimes, and a coup.”
The book begins with Fanone’s account of meeting House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy in his office several months after the insurrection. Fanone was accompanied by Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of wounds sustained on Jan. 6. Fanone told McCarthy that his Metropolitan Police Department partner, Jeff Leslie, narrowly escaped a Black Lives Matter protest over the summer, after someone placed a Molotov cocktail under his squad car.
Fanone described how those protests created “incredibly difficult challenges” for the police but went on to tell McCarthy that no one from the Black Livesd Matter movement engaged in sedition. “Trying to overthrow the U.S. Capitol and trying to overthrow a CVS are two different things. My partner understands that, and most police officers, and most Americans understand that, too.”
It turns out that Fanone was right about that.
Polling before the midterm election showed that both crime and democracy were top concerns for voters. In a Pew Research poll in November, respondents were most concerned about the economy, followed by the future of democracy in the country. Violent crime came in fifth, tied with energy policy.
And when it came down to actual election results, there were two big takeaways from the midterms. Voters overwhelmingly rejected election deniers. Nearly every single candidate in battleground state races who denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election was defeated for elective offices that oversee, defend and certify elections. Voters also split their tickets, supporting a Democrat in one race and a Republican in another. These actions matter because even in this hyperpartisan era, the quality of individual candidates clearly still matters, and the Jan. 6 Select Committee Hearings, which included the testimony of Fanone, did resonate with voters.
Law enforcement officials who hold the line should receive our gratitude for protecting our lives, our property, and our democracy.
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