WASHINGTON — Body worn camera footage obtained by CNN shows the savage beating of DC police officer Michael Fanone as he attempted to defend the US Capitol during the riot on January 6.
The video, first broadcast on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is just under five minutes long and begins with an unidentified Capitol Rioter shouting “I got one!”, referring to Fanone, as the veteran officer is grabbed and pulled into the crowd, and then down the steps as he tried to hold the police line at the West Terrace Lower Tunnel entrance.
Fanone, who said he was beaten with fists, metal objects and electrocuted numerous times with his own Taser, suffered a mild heart attack and a concussion in the brutal attack. Last week, he penned an open letter to elected officials calling on them to stop "downplaying" the events of Jan. 6.
Officer Fanone said he continues to struggle daily with the emotional anxiety of surviving such a traumatic event as well as the "anxiety of hearing those who continue to downplay the events of that day and those who would ignore them altogether."
At other points in the video broadcast by CNN, Fanone can be heard screaming as he is continually assaulted by the rioters, which seemed to have some impact on members of the crowd. An unidentified rioter is heard saying “Don’t hurt him” before Fanone cries out “I got kids!”
The video concludes with Fanone being helped away from the crowds and the police line, unconscious.
You can watch the video below. WARNING: The video is graphic in nature.
CNN broadcast the video just hours after a partisan house oversight hearing on security failures of Jan. 6, with some Republican members of Congress seemingly downplaying the severity of the Capitol breach.
“If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit,” Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) said.
Clyde called it a “boldfaced lie” to refer to the events of that day as an “insurrection.”
RELATED: MPD officer beaten during Capitol riot calls out 'disgraceful' indifference from politicians
In his letter to elected officials, Fanone angrily called out politicians who don’t acknowledge the severity of what happened to him and 850 other MPD members who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with rioters.
“I struggle daily with the emotional anxiety of having survived such a traumatic event,” Fanone writes. “But I also struggle with the anxiety of hearing those who continue to downplay the events of that day and those who would ignore them altogether with their lack of acknowledgment. The indifference shown to my colleagues and I is disgraceful."