One of the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the deadly Trump-incited January 6 insurrection is pushing back against the ex-president’s claim that it was a “day of love.”
During a Univision-hosted town hall in Miami on Wednesday for undecided Latino voters the GOP presidential nominee was asked about the attack.
“I want to give you the opportunity to try to win back my vote,” Ramiro Gonzalez, a 56-year old “no longer registered” Republican told Trump. “Your — I’m going to say, action and maybe inaction during your presidency, and the last few years, sort of, was a little disturbing to me. What happened during January 6 and the fact that, you know, you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capitol.”
“Coronavirus,” Gonzalez added, “I thought the public was misled, and many more lives could have been saved if we would have been informed better.”
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After blasting his former vice president, Mike Pence, Trump distanced himself from the events of that day, claiming his supporters “didn’t come because of me — they came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came.”
“There were no guns down there, we didn’t have guns,” Trump also told Ramirez. “The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down. This was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands, it could have been the largest group I’ve ever spoken before. They asked me to speak, I went, and I spoke. And I used the term peacefully and patriotically.”
Trump’s “day of love” remark clearly hit Aquilino Gonell, the former U.S. Capitol Police sergeant who had to retire after being gravely injured on January 6.
Gonell had “joined the Army, fought in Iraq and became a police officer at the U.S. Capitol,” WBUR reported earlier this year. “On Jan. 6, 2021, Sargeant Gonell was attacked and beaten by rioters as he and his fellow officers tried to hold the line.”
“Gonell and his fellow officers were badly outnumbered. The mob beat them with pipes, sticks and rocks, sprayed them with chemicals, as they tried to hold the line and defend the Capitol and the peaceful transfer of power.”
He told WBUR, “I almost lost my life a couple of times,” on January 6.
On Thursday, responding to Trump’s “day of love” comment, Gonell posted video of him being attacked on January 6.
“Here’s me receiving an outpouring amount of affection during the ‘day of love’—January 6, 2021,” he wrote. A few minutes later, he added, “They almost loved me to death.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
