Police captain offers grisly new details of Capitol riot at first official hearing on insurrection

 (Independent)
(Independent)

A captain in the US Capitol Police force who responded to the 6 January Capitol riot offered a harrowing first-hand account on Tuesday of her experience battling white supremacists and other pro-Trump elements.

Rioters nearly broke her arm amid the chaos, Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a veteran of the US Army, told senators at the first official hearing on the 6 January security breach. She and her fellow officers were gassed. Many were struck with blunt objects and beaten to the ground.

“I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day,” Ms Mendoza said.

The Senate was set to hear testimony on Tuesday from four security officials on Capitol Hill who oversaw the response to the 6 January Capitol riot, as lawmakers seek answers on what went wrong leading up to the attack.

The four panelists testifying before the Senate Rules and Homeland Security Committees are Metropolitan Police Acting Chief Robert Contee, former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, former Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger, and former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

Tuesday’s hearing is the first in a series of expected oversight efforts in Washington to identify intel-gathering failures leading up to the security breach at the Capitol on 6 January.

“This is certainly not the last hearing that we will have regarding this attack. Next week we will hear from witnesses from federal agencies including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense,” said Senate Rules Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar.

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