‘Clear choice’: Former Jan. 6 officers stump for Biden in Nevada
By Taylor R. Avery Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn speaks during a press conference as he and others campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. From left are Richard McCann, Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Dunn and Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. speaks during a press conference as she and others campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell is joined by Officer Harry Dunn as he holds up pieces of glass, metal and rubber bullets from the lower west terrace entrance as a reminder of that day as he speaks during a press conference on the campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Mary Dungan wears her unique hat as friend Donna West sports Nevada earrings during a press conference on the campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, center, speaks while joined by Richard McCann, Officer Harry Dunn and Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. during a press conference as they campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell is joined by Officer Harry Dunn as he speaks during a press conference on the campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn speaks during a press conference as he and others campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
January 6 U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell holds up pieces of glass, metal and rubber bullets from the lower west terrace entrance as a reminder of that day as he speaks during a press conference on the campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
A Biden-Harris sign catches the window light atop a box of many more during a press conference on the campaign for President Joe Biden on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Las Vegas (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Former police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, cast Donald Trump as a threat to democracy and threw their support behind President Joe Biden during a Wednesday event in Las Vegas.
Former Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and officer Harry Dunn painted the presidential race as a “911 emergency” for democracy and called on voters to reject the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in the upcoming election.
“There’s a clear choice in November. It’s not even up for debate,” Dunn said. “Nevada, we have to elect Joe Biden.”
The event is just one stop on a nationwide tour to key battleground states, with stops planned in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and New Hampshire.
The officers took sharp aim at the former president during the event, slamming him for failing to denounce the attack and for considering pardons for those who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
“Donald Trump’s failure to denounce violence on January 6 is a slap in the face to every officer that put their life on the line every day, and every veteran who risked everything to defend our country,” said Gonell, whose law enforcement career ended after he sustained permanent injuries during the attack.
Approximately 140 officers were injured during the attack, which saw a mob of those in support of Trump storm the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The U.S. Department of Justice has charged more than 1,300 people in connection to the attack.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt accused Biden and Democrats of turning cities into “cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”
“Exactly one candidate supports law and order and will empower local law enforcement, and that’s President Donald J. Trump. On day one, President Trump will secure the border and empower local law enforcement to arrest criminals and deport illegal aliens,” Leavitt said in a statement.
The former U.S. Capitol Police officers were also scheduled to appear in Reno on Wednesday afternoon with Washoe County Commission Chair Alexis Hill and Assemblywoman Natha Anderson, D-Reno.
The events come about a month before the June 27 presidential debate.
