Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman through The Epoch Occasions (emphasis ours),

A Metropolitan Police Division officer wielding a wood flagpole like a medieval lance contained in the U.S. Capitol tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021, later bragged to fellow officers that the lengthy wood dowel was “my greatest weapon,” newly launched bodycam video exhibits.

Video recorded by Officer Michael Dowling’s bodycam exhibits him climbing onto a slender ledge within the Decrease West Terrace tunnel and attacking a girl in a white coat standing close to the doorway.

As Dowling jabbed on the lady—together with two contacts to the top—she hurried to get off the ledge and escape the tunnel.

“I’m attempting!” she cried out.

Somebody on the entrance of the tunnel shouted at her, “Get the [expletive] out of right here!”

Dowling picked up the flagpole from the ground of the tunnel entrance at 3:19 p.m. and moved into the tunnel.

After dislodging the girl in white, Dowling jabbed at numerous males on the entrance line who confronted inward towards the police. That drew the ire of protest chief Anthony Alexander Antonio of Wilmington, Delaware, who had been addressing the group with a bullhorn.

“Give up that [expletive],” Antonio shouted at Dowling. “Give up that [expletive].”

Two hours later, after the crowds had been pushed from the Decrease West Terrace, Dowling met up with MPD Officer Jeffrey Leslie.

“I misplaced my flagpole,” Dowling lamented. “That was my greatest weapon.”

“You probably did nicely with that, sir,” Leslie replied. When one other officer approached, Leslie informed him, “This man’s the person with the flagpole.”

Dowling defined, “I began jabbing folks with the flagpole.”

A fourth officer joined the dialog. “You bought a number of folks with it?” he requested.

“Oh yeah,” Dowling replied.

“Good!”

“It snapped, after which they took it again,” Dowling mentioned.

After that dialog, Dowling went again into the Capitol and spoke with one other MPD officer on the high of a staircase.

“Hear, I’d have by no means thought I’d have the event to hit a person with the American flag within the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Constructing,” the officer informed Dowling. “And I obtained to right now.”

The Epoch Occasions requested the Metropolitan Police Division for touch upon Dowling’s use of power, however didn’t obtain a reply.

The tone for the afternoon was set at 2:41 p.m., when an officer within the staging space simply contained in the Capitol shouted directions.

‘We’d like an old-school CDU [civil-disturbance unit] for these doorways, you hear me? Previous-school CDU,” the officer mentioned. “Nightstick out. We aren’t dropping the U.S. Capitol right now! Do you hear me? We aren’t dropping the U.S. Capitol!”

At 2:49 p.m., somebody discharged a fireplace extinguisher into the tunnel, inflicting the inside Capitol hallways to fill with a dry airborne chemical.

‘Sordid File’

Brad Geyer, the Jan. 6 protection legal professional who posted the Dowling bodycam on Twitter, mentioned the movies are peeling again the court-enforced veneer that, in lots of instances, hid the reality.

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