A former Capitol Police officer who helped evacuate the building during the rioting on January 6 claimed that his superiors cut off radio communication and that he had to wear a red MAGA hat to make his way through an angry mob.
Tarik Johnson said on Tuesday’s Fox News broadcast that his superiors were unprepared for the disturbance. When the throng grew more hostile, he attempted to exit the Senate side of the building but received neither a reaction nor authorization to do so.
Johnson stated, “the person I assumed would permit to evacuate didn’t.” He explained that he had asked numerous times over the radio for permission to begin evacuating people out of the Senate side of the building since he could see a safe way out.
He claimed that dispatchers had assisted in calling for an evacuation, but that there had been no response from managers, so Johnson had to get the senators to safety on his own. He eventually learned that his other police officers required assistance.
According to Johnson, he lost his job after being spotted in the pro-Trump cap. He said that someone in the crowd had placed it on his head, and when the owner requested it back, Johnson refused to return it so that he might use it to aid his comrades.
“I believed that if I donned the hat, it would be simpler to move past the crowd,” he explained. “The primary concerns were survival and restoring peace. Well, I had to walk up those steps. What would have occurred if I hadn’t had it as I made my way through the crowd is anybody’s guess.”
Johnson claimed that he cast a close vote for Joe Biden in 2020 and that his first goal was to get “the members of Congress and their staff to safety.”
According to Carlson, the CCTV footage appears to corroborate Johnson’s account.
As Carlson put it, “A picture was shot of Johnson sporting a MAGA hat outside the Capitol.” Because of that photo, he was fired.
Johnson claimed that whenever he put on the hat, he would occasionally gaze at it and give thanks to God.
It’s amazing how often I find myself wishing I’d never come across this hat.
After Carlson aired part of the previously unseen 40,000 hours of security footage on his broadcast on Monday, he conducted the interview that night. From what could be seen on the video, numerous attendees reported being disregarded by cops on multiple occasions. Several of the supposedly violent crowd could be seen on camera to be walking into the building in a rather orderly fashion. The video, however, revealed that many in the massive crowd smashed windows, scaled buildings, and brawled with law enforcement.