You call me Harry. Hi there, officer. Good evening, how are you? Good, how are you? Good.

We just got instructed to take off as we're done, Harry. So, yeah, not not going to happen. I'm calling you my phone. You can call me Mike, but I refuse to call a member of the United States Capitol Police anything other than officer said, if you insist.

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is a daily in recent weeks, congressional hearings into the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol have exposed major failures in the preparation and conduct of the United States Capitol Police, the special force assigned to protect the building and those inside of the Capitol. Police officials have now given their testimony. But the story of what that day was like for rank and file officers themselves has been largely untold. Those officers were either discouraged from publicly speaking or were afraid to out of concern for their safety.

Today, one Capitol police officer shares his story. It's Wednesday, March 10th. OK, now that you are ready to tell your story publicly, tell us about yourself. Who are you?

I am a I'm a father to a beautiful nine year old girl. I am a black man who happens to be a police officer. I am a caring person who wants to see everybody in life live to their fullest potential and treat each other with kindness. That's who I am in a nutshell. Officer Harry Dunn grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Maryland, to be exact. Prince George's County, Maryland, as I was looking for different careers to choose.

I found out information about the Capitol Police and what you learn about a little bit more about it. The benefits were really pretty good at the time.

And from his first day on the job, he says he was awed by the Capitol.

It's a historic place. You know, it's a it's such a monumental place. It's the nation's capital. It's it's it's so prestigious.

But mindful of its history, looking at the Capitol as a black person, just knowing the history of it and how slaves were. Crucial and the building standing, they are the reason that building is, is they built it. And when you take a step back and actually think about it, it gets overwhelming, you just like, wow, look at how far we've come and then you got events like six and you say, wow, maybe we haven't come that far at all.

According to congressional testimony, by the morning of the 6th, the leadership of the Capitol Police were aware of the strong possibility for violence that day.

But when Officer Dunn reported to work, he says he was expecting a relatively normal day of protests, just a First Amendment protest and people coming up there to express their pleasure or displeasure with Congress, which is people's right.

Part of the condition of Officer Dunn speaking to us is that he cannot discuss the conduct of his superiors or describe their communications with him, but he can share what happened that day from his own perspective. And he says that shortly after noon, he started to receive calls on his radio that the crowd marching on the Capitol had turned violent. He eventually took a position on the west side of the Capitol, and he says that that's when he realized just how dangerous the situation had become.

I was out there with a long gun and then for a rifle, and you're out there in an elevated position with this rifle looking down on thousands of thousands of people. And these weren't people out there passing out pamphlets. They had bad intentions. And we know they were armed because there were guns found and confiscated and people were arrested. So imagine the world that we didn't find. So we know they were armed. You're out there and I'm just big target, and I'm thinking to myself, I am going to get taken out.

I am going to get shot.

As the crowd stormed the barricades below him, Officer Dunn says he left his position to tend to fellow officers who had come under attack.

So I'm up there helping officers that have been pepper sprayed and gassed. I'm I'm helping dickon them. That was like a safe spot where we had we were had an officer hold right there and we got water and we're declining these officers who can't seem to decontaminate if they have been exposed to gas bombs and pepper spray and smoke grenades. We were taking them up there washing that stuff out of their eyes, making sure they were capable of going back into the fight.

So that's what I was assisting with initially as that was going on. They started to grow rowdy on the east side of the Capitol. And that is where the first initial breaches happened. And that's when we teamed up in teams of two to respond inside the building to assist officers inside. They needed help. Once we got word that were people inside, we had to go because that is unchartered territory. I mean, the whole day was but you got people inside the Capitol and Congress is in session.

The vice president is overseeing proceedings, so absolutely we we got to go this is. Whoa. There we go, guys, let's go back and and describe that scene inside the Capitol as you respond.

Well, as we're responding to calls, it was an officer down. It was officer who was trapped, surrounded by rioters. There was a call for officer needs assistance, holding a doorway. And then the Orsay another officer calls out the coming to the windows. Also been their calls for another officer down, another officer down. We can't breathe this gas in here. They're throwing fire extinguishers. There's some kind of explosion that just went off. There's shots fired, it's just it's chaos.

The cause became so frequent and so many that we couldn't do too many teams anymore because there weren't enough officers to go around for people that needed assistance. So everybody now with just one man teams and then you get upstairs and you're looking around, it literally just looked like just a free for all and people just running around. With their flags out in smoke everywhere, it's this pepper spray in the air. People are hugging statues and taking pictures and yelling and screaming all in the capital, the sacred place.

You know what represents a pinnacle of democracy? And you're seeing all of this. And in your mind, it's like, I cannot believe what I'm seeing right now. But you don't have time to process all of that because you have to. Restore some kind of order. I was watching this live, I think a lot of us were watching this live and I had started watching what I thought was going to be a proceeding in the House and the Senate.

But it all changed very quickly and it changed most quickly for you. But I think for all of us who watched these events unfold through videos, what stood out was that, yes, there was this huge volume of riders coming at you all. And you all seem to be making a decision, which I want to try to understand, to not use force. I remember thinking to myself, will the use force, will an officer raise their gun?

Will they shoot their gun? Given the dynamics here and with one exception that resulted in a rioter being killed, that really didn't happen. That's a very. Complicated question to answer. I'm going to air on the side of not saying something without clearly thinking it through, and I'm just going to I'm just going to I'm not going to address that. I apologize. I wish I could, because I know a lot of people want to know why the hell did you shoot them?

When and I'll just tease it a little bit when you say shoot them. Which one?

Hmm. All of them. They were freaking possessed zombies, like it was insane. They were just no matter what, they just kept coming and coming and coming. And there were so many of them, there were so many of them. And they were just wave after wave at the way that the wave. And it was like, where does it end? OK, again, a question you may find frustrating. Were there ever any instructions given that day?

About whether or not or how to use. Force. No, I'm not going to I'm not going to discuss anything that has anything to do with any instructions we were or were not given, I'm not going to discuss that, OK? I can only discuss about my specific experiences on what I saw. And but that does not have anything to do with talking about my department because I'm just speaking for myself now.

I'm going to give this I'm going to give it a try. And you can avoid this last answer. Was there ever was there ever a moment, Officer? Where as you surveyed the situation. Looked at the numbers. The intent, the stubbornness, everything you just described of these writers and thought to yourself. I should use force. I thought I should use force. I thought that I was going to die, but I did not know. Who Will was going to be by so I think that goes back to the point where who do you who who do use force against, can't use force against everybody can't use force on somebody because you think that somebody is going to do something bad.

Who just because I thought that it was going to happen. Who do I shoot? What do I shoot if somebody knows? Tell me, please, please tell me who was I supposed to shoot? It's so striking to hear you say that even with a powerful rifle in your hands. As a member of the United States Capitol Police force, you are terrified. It's problematic when you start talking about using deadly force against people and using the fear for your life, I think because that's an emotion, just because I was scared isn't a reason for why I should have.

Taking somebodies life. I thought I said I was going to go into force, and that's all I'm going to say about that, going to move on. I'm going to move on from that. So. I'm struck by this image that you're describing of you up against so many people, and it reminded me of that now viral video of Officer Eugene Goodman, one of your colleagues. He's running up the stairs of the Capitol on his own with what feels like dozens of riders chasing after him.

I was I was real quick, I want to say more than dozens, like hundreds.

I mean, are you just watching that you just have an overwhelming sensation of how outnumbered you all seemed.

There were people around me, but you felt like you were alone because there's so many people. You know, I've had a buddy co-worker come to me who at the time couldn't see a thing because he got blasted with bear spray to his face. He can't see anything. But he told me he was comforted once he heard my voice. And I say, hey, I got you. He was comforted at that moment, you know. But it was.

We were extremely outnumbered. It's possible you're not going to answer this question, but try anyway. Did you feel that there was sufficient. Personally, did you feel that there were sufficient backup provided one of the things that recently came up in these hearings is that there was something like a three hour gap between when the Capitol Police, your force, asked for assistance from the National Guard and when the White House responded to that request. And in that moment, did you hear any calls for backup and so on.

So that's the thing with your radio one. You really you can't hear much with everything that was going on. So I can't I can't sit there and say, oh, yes, at this time they absolutely asked for backup or that I can't go into that. All I know is that once people got there, we secured the building and we were able to restore. Democracy and safety to that building. Was there a moment where you wonder to yourself, I wonder this as someone watching it from quite far away, where's the backup?

When will people in uniforms just swarm this building? No, I wasn't thinking about no logistics, I was thinking about surviving. All right, that's it. That's it. That's it. I didn't have time to think about, OK, you know what, FBI, police is close or oh, you know what? Maybe they could call it, you know, Andrews Air Force Base the too far. Maybe I didn't think about that crap. I just survive this survive, guys.

Hey, my buddy right here is down. Come here. Let me drag you to a safe place where you can recover and and get back in the fight. That's what I was thinking about. I want to ask you a sensitive question, how present was another one, how how present was your identity as a black man, a black officer in all of this? We know that there were people in that crowd who espoused hateful, racist, white supremacist point of views.

So be direct because I don't understand what you mean. How present was it?

Like, what do you what do you mean? Were you encountering people who were explicit in their views about race? Absolutely.

Absolutely, and I didn't realize that until after I told. My story, a couple other my co-workers who are black shared with me their greatest experience is that day. And while I wasn't surprised, I was just like, wow, I didn't know. My experience happened when I encountered a group. It was a tactic used by me because I was exhausted. I can't fight nobody else. I can't I'm tired and it's like 30 or 40, 50 people I can't fight.

So, like, let's talk where. So they started talking about how Joe Biden didn't win the election. And I was like, all right, let's listen. OK, we're talking we're talking now. That means I'm not fighting and I'm not being exhausted. And I said I voted for Joe Biden, is my vote not count now and then and then that's when the girl said, you hear that this N word vote for Joe Biden, guys. And then the whole 20, 30, 40, 50 people that were there say this N-word voted for Joe Biden, boo.

I said that I got caught a couple of dozen times, but it was one instance by a couple of dozen people, so. What was your reaction to being? Called a racial slur in that moment when you were being outnumbered. You're physically threatened it didn't register with me as I'm being. Demonized for my race, it didn't register with me at that time. Why? Because I'm exhausted and I'm trying to just survive.

I don't have time to process being called names and have time to process that, but finally, once we got an opportunity to get the building secure and it's finally a little bit of normalcy starting to restore itself, I saw a familiar friend face, a close friend of mine, and we just looked at each other and we sat down and you kind of just like locked eyes and you just like what what the hell happened? What the hell just happened? And I told him my experience due out today and my experience about what happened, me call it a racial slur.

And that's where the whole freakin phrase is this America. That's that's my phrase, you know. But I wasn't trying to say no damn catch phrase like whatever. You know, I didn't know that that was going to be used in the impeachment trial. I didn't know that.

One of our capital officers who defended us that day was a longtime veteran of our force for several hours straight as the Marauders punched and kicked and mauled and spit upon and hit officers with baseball bats and fire extinguishers, curse the cops and stormed our capital. He defended us and he lived every minute of his oath of office.

And afterwards, overwhelmed by emotion, he broke down in the rotunda and he cried for 15 minutes and he shouted out, I got called an N-word 15 times today.

And then he recorded I sat down with one of my buddies, another black guy in tears, just started streaming down my face and I said, what the F man is this, America?

We'll be right back. Paramount plus is not just another streaming app binge, the best of CBS and hits from Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Smithsonian Channel and Comedy Central, plus critically acclaimed originals like The Good Fight, Star Trek, The Card and the Stand Paramount, plus has family entertainment like Perpetual, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer and New Paramount, plus originals like The Sponge on the Run Movie and Camgirl Paramount. Plus live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment.

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If you find yourself bewildered by this moment where there's so much reason for despair and so much reason to hope all at the same time. Let me say I hear you. I'm Ezra Klein from New York Times, opinion host of the Ezra Klein Show. And for me, the best way to beat back that bewildered feeling is to talk it out with the people who have ideas and frameworks for making sense of it.

From my days at The Washington Post to my time as editor in chief at Vox and now as an opinion columnist at The New York Times, I've tried to ask the questions that matter to the people at the heart of those matters, like how do we address climate change if the political system fails to act?

Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness and and what is sci fi understand about our present that we miss? This is the Ezra Klein show and there's going to be plenty to talk about. You can find new episodes every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. I wonder what it was like for you the next day, January 7th, you wake up. Angry. How are you angry?

You're angry, you're tired, but you're angry like I was I was you know, it was probably people that haven't really processed what happened even now, two months later, it was a traumatic, traumatic. Historical event. You know, I don't think people are. Realize the magnitude of this, so at this particular time, I had it at the 7th of January. I didn't have time to process my hurt, you know, my pain. I didn't have time for that.

Because it's right back to work and do your job. Let's keep this place safe. I'll come back today if you want. Did you come back yet? Absolutely.

And you know what my co-workers did to. They fought their asses off and they was ready to do it again the next day. I just want a picture that first day back. Did you all just. Do your job without any formal meetings, were you just having casual conversations in the field that day? We relied on each other a lot for each other's support and we talk to each other, but the conversation that I had with my friend and I tend to like that that conversation with had.

10, 15 more times over the next 24 hours. We were each other's therapy because everybody that was there had a different story to tell, and everyone was just as every story was just as traumatic as the next one. And as the next one. And if you had to pick the easiest day, you could it in my mind, you you all immediately show up and there's counseling or you're all born into a giant conference room and it's kind of hashed out.

We need to talk about what happened yesterday. And it sounds like. That was not what happened to you, just not not not immediately, not immediately, not. Is so hard, within that week, we had counselors on there, we had peer support groups and people to talk to and stuff like that. So yes, but immediately it's almost impossible to just I mean, it took a little while for backup to get there to help with the fight.

So it's going to take a minute or two. You know, take hold on, guys. It's coming.

So I'm curious if in the days following January 6th, there were any tensions within the Capitol police force. I believe that something like six officers were suspended. And I don't want to. Yeah, I'm not I'm not going to ask you about that. But but just a fact. And the suggestion that they might not have done their job correctly or that they might have interacted with the rioters in a way that wasn't appropriate. I did that. I'm not sure where you all talked about this.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not going to I'm not going to address that even a little bit, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to move again. Yeah, we're moving from that. I understand.

I understand. I know you can't comment on elements that are still under investigation, but did you know the officer who was killed in the line of duty during the riot?

Brian know Brian. Brian and I, Brian, this officer, Brian Brian signature. We worked on the same unit together, the first responders unit. He worked the evening shift. I work day shifts. So we saw each other in passing and enough to have a cordial friendship. He was such an amazing man, a police officer, and just somebody who brought the term is bring your lunch pail to work every day and do your job and go home.

And you could always count on him to do his job. And if you needed something, he wouldn't hesitate to be there for you. Just a just a great person. The thing that I keep coming back to even today, that it could have been me, it could have been any one of us, it could have been any other of those coworkers there because we were all fighting the same. War, we will do what we want. We were all trying to do the exact same thing and it could have been any one of us.

You talked about the many support groups that were offered. After January 6th, to try to make sure that you all did have a chance to process what had happened and talk it through, and often at least by reputation, police officers, military officers can feel a bit of a stigma around psychology and have been talking through trauma. What was that present for you all? For you?

You know, I I am a huge proponent of seeking mental like therapy, like absolute like even before the sixth. Like, I have a counselor that I see regularly, somebody that I talk to. And I'm a huge proponent for that, so you welcome that right away. Absolutely. But but, yes, there is a stigma that mental health and talking about it makes you weak or soft. I have people tell me that they thanked me for saying that I was scared and thanked me for just admitting that because that made me feel.

Well, I'm not the only one who was scared that day, so therapy, yes, do it, please. Everybody has it. Even people that nothing wrong with go to therapy, they just talk. I'm with you, you know, as a proponent of therapy, has a therapist giving you any tools or exercises. Or have they said anything to you when you've been talking about January 6th and your feelings about it that helped you cope?

Yeah, yeah, I'll keep those private and to myself. But yeah, absolutely. It's been very it's been helpful, but. Yeah. I'm sure you've given some thought to the fact that. Two of your colleagues ended up. In so much pain after January 6th that they took their own lives, which would suggest that the psychological scars from that day are very, very deep. How do you make sense of that? Or is it not something anyone can make sense of you?

I think it would be almost selfish to try to make sense of that. I can't say what somebody felt, I don't know, it's just like somebody can't tell you what I felt right.

Everybody for their own personal hell that day. Well, Officer Dunn, I know this has been an exhausting couple of months, and I really appreciate you spending so much time talking about this with us. And I want to thank you for your service.

Thank you so much, Mike. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And any time you want to talk, give me a shout.

There's no therapy like a good interview. So that might need therapy after this interview and I might take care of it. Bye bye. This week, a task force commissioned by Congress to review security at the Capitol on January 6th issued a series of recommendations. It proposed hiring more than 800 new Capitol Police officers, including intelligence specialists, constructing mobile fencing around the Capitol complex and changing procedures to allow the Capitol Police to more quickly summon backup, including from the National Guard.

We'll be right back. Paramount plus is not just another streaming app binge, the best of CBS and hits from Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Smithsonian Channel and Comedy Central, plus critically acclaimed originals like The Good Fight, Star Trek, Ricard and the Stand Paramount, plus has family entertainment like Perpetual, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer and New Paramount, plus originals like The Sponge on the Run Movie and Cape Coral Paramount. Plus live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment.

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Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives passed the most significant expansion of labor rights since the New Deal. The bill gives greater protections to workers seeking to form a union, repeals dozens of state laws designed to weaken unions and increases the government's powers to punish companies that violate workers rights. But the bill faces strong opposition in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance it and Republicans are unanimously opposed. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, it was edited by Michael Benowa and Lisa Tobin and engineered by Dan Powell.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Paramount plus is not just another streaming app you can stream CBS Sports live, including the NFL, March Madness and Champions League, stay connected with CBS News 24/7 binge, critically acclaimed series like The Good Fight, Star Trek, Pacard and the Stand, plus family entertainment like Patrol, Dora the Explorer and New Paramount, plus originals like the Sponge on the Run Movie and Camp Korrell, Paramount, plus live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment.

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