“I will be able to simply take into account my breath catching in my throat as a result of what I noticed was once only a struggle scene. It was once one thing like I had noticed out of the films,” stated Edwards, who the Area choose committee investigating america Capitol assault stated was once the primary regulation enforcement officer injured by means of the rioters.
“I could not consider my eyes: There have been officials at the flooring. They had been bleeding. They had been throwing up. I noticed pals with blood far and wide their faces. I used to be slipping in folks’s blood. I used to be catching folks as they fell. It was once carnage. It was once chaos. I will be able to’t even describe what I noticed. By no means in my wildest goals did I feel that as a police officer, as a regulation enforcement officer, I’d to find myself in the course of a fight,” she recalled.
Edwards instructed the committee there have been “hours of hand-to-hand struggle” and that there have been “hours of coping with issues that had been manner past what any regulation enforcement officer has ever educated for.”
She described taking pleasure in her activity to “give protection to The united states’s image of democracy” — and the vicious public scrutiny she had persisted after she suffered a hectic mind harm all through the assault.
“I used to be referred to as a large number of issues on January 6, 2021, and the times thereafter,” she stated “I used to be referred to as Nancy Pelosi’s canine, referred to as incompetent, referred to as a hero and a villain. I used to be referred to as a traitor to my nation, my house and my Charter. In reality, I used to be none of the ones issues.”
“I used to be an American status face-to-face with different American citizens asking myself what number of time — many, time and again — how we had gotten right here. I were referred to as names earlier than, however by no means had my patriotism or accountability been referred to as into query,” she added.
Regarding herself as “the proud granddaughter” of a Marine veteran who had fought within the Korean Conflict, Edwards stated: “I’m a proud American, and I can gladly sacrifice the entirety to be sure that the The united states my grandfather defended is right here for many years yet to come.”
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, thanked Edwards for her carrier after her testimony, pronouncing, “Your heroism within the face of threat is admirable and your willingness to serve in spite of your accidents must be an inspiration to all people.”
The union representing rank-and-file US Capitol Law enforcement officials on Thursday recommended Edwards for her testimony and referred to as for responsibility for high-ranking Capitol Police officers who remained of their jobs after the rise up.
The officials who had been on accountability on January 6, the union stated, “paid a horrible worth, and a few of the ones accidents are so serious the officials won’t ever go back to accountability and can are living with lingering ache for the remainder of their lives.”
“We want responsibility, beginning with our personal leaders,” the union stated in a remark. “Make no mistake, the breach of the U.S. Capitol was once a failure of our management, as defined within the Senate document previous this yr. It is unconscionable that Officer Edwards was once at the West entrance of the Capitol without a common fence, no rise up equipment and too few officials to again her up. She can have been killed.”
CNN’s Whitney Wild and Clare Floran contributed to this document.
