Michael Fanone - Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cops Battle for Americas Soul

This timely book offers a stark message for this uncertain moment, making crystal clear the urgency and importance of defending our precious democracy.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Hold the Line

The Insurrection and One Cops Battle for Americas Soul

Michael Fanone and John Shiffman

To the women in my life:

Mom, Caitlin, Piper, Mei-Mei, Hensley, Leslie, and M,

and to Belle

Action is the antidote to despair.

JOAN BAEZ

W hen I worked undercover as a vice officer in the projects, I developed certain core survival skills. I learned how to read a room. I learned how to cut through lies and get a suspect to incriminate himself on tape. I learned how to enter a room without a weapon, armed only with my wits, and exit alive.

These skills extended from the streets to the courtroom. Theres no substitute for preparation. Whenever I had a case go to trial, I slipped into the courthouse a few days early to scout the judge and defense attorney. Before taking the witness stand, I studied the case file and mastered the facts. When you command the truth, its hard to lose.

I was a street cop in Washington, D.C., for nearly twenty years, and good habits die hard. So while still on the city force in June 2021, I prepped for a meeting with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the U.S. House, the same way I would before meeting a meth kingpin in Dupont Circle or a crack dealer on North Capitol Street: I studied the man. In McCarthys case, that meant days reading speeches, tweets, profiles, and interviews.

It had been six months since January 6, 2021. By then, McCarthys initial public support of the officers who responded to the Capitol riot had vanished. I was one of the 850 Metropolitan Police Department officers who rushed to help the Capitol Police that day, to defend the seat of our American democracy. Vastly outnumbered, we beat back a mob of crazed and violent Trump supporters engaged in medieval, hand-to-hand combat. During the coup attempt, scores of MPD and Capitol officers were seriously injured. Five died, including four by suicide.

Im the MPD cop in that famous picture from January 6th, the one with the beard and black helmet with fear etched across my face, surrounded by the Trump mob, about to be tased at the base of my skull and beaten with a Blue Lives Matter flagpole. During the riot, I suffered a traumatic brain injury and a heart attack. As a result of the electric shocks, I have three large scars between my neck and shoulders, scalded flesh that may never heal. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. By June 2021, I felt fucking lucky just to be alive.

Since the insurrection, Id called out Republicans like McCarthy whod tried to downplay the severity of the attack. Id written open letters to Congress, appeared on national TV, and shown riot footage from my body-worn camera to anyone willing to watch. In a month, I would testify before Congress with three of my fellow officers.

But on this day in late June, I was set to meet privately with McCarthy, alongside U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of wounds sustained on January 6th. For weeks, the three of us had made the rounds on the Hill, urging support for a congressional investigation, pushing back against Republicans trying to rewrite history. We also tried to meet with the twenty-one Republicans who voted against a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to every police officer who defended the Capitol. Several of these Republicans, including Andrew Clyde, refused to even shake my hand.

Now, McCarthy was backing off on a pledge to appoint Republicans to the special January 6th Committee. The only reason McCarthy had agreed to meet with us was because hed been getting heat for refusing to see me. When I first called to make an appointment, one of his staffers hung up on me. When I told Speaker Nancy Pelosi about this, she issued a press release titled, Ask McCarthy: Why Wont He Shake Officer Fanones Hand? A week later, she issued another statement: Despite claiming to Back the Blue, McCarthy and his Conference have made a habit of disrespecting the officers who protected them from Januarys insurrection. The pressure worked. McCarthy agreed to meet with us for an hour.

Our goal was simple: convince the House minority leader to publicly condemn the twenty-one Republicans who voted against the Congressional Gold Medal bill, and commit to a serious insurrection investigation. Before I met McCarthy, I went through the same clear-my-head rituals I did before I went undercover to buy meth, heroin, or crack: I listened to Sturgill Simpson in my truck while doing breathing exercises to lower my blood pressure.

As I entered the Capitol, I did what I always did when I went on a risky op: I hit the record button on my iPhone and stuffed it in my pocket.

Hello, Im Kevin, McCarthy said, extending a hand as we entered his Capitol office, a room oddly anchored by impressionist portraits of Lincoln and Reagan. Sit wherever you like.

I sized up which chair might be McCarthys favorite and planted myself there. Officer Dunn and Mrs. Sicknick took the couch. McCarthy pulled up a side chair. Dunn is a passionate man and a gentle gianthe played offensive line in the Canadian pro football league.

The Hill was Dunns turf, so he spoke first. He began diplomatically, noting that McCarthy claimed to be the first to alert Trump about the Capitol riot on the afternoon of January 6th. McCarthy took the cue and took credit for getting Trump to make a late-afternoon public statement urging his seditious supporters to go home. Mrs. Sicknick scowled and challenged the Republican leader.

He already knew what was going on, she said of Trump. People were fighting for hours and hours and hours. This doesnt make any sense to me.

McCarthy was quick to defend Trump, Im just telling you from my phone call that he didnt know that.

Id heard enough. Not to interrupt you, Mrs. Sicknick, I said, doing exactly that. Turning to McCarthy, I said, My experience that day was pretty damn horrifying. Im not sure if youve seen any of my body-worn camera footage.

Were you here all day or did they call you up? McCarthy asked.

I self-deployed, I said, noting that I was working an undercover heroin case that day. What I heard on the radio was what really inspired me to respond: officers screaming for their lives.

I told McCarthy that Id been a cop for two decades. I thought Id experienced everything inner city policing could throw at you: resentment, anger, racism, poverty, violenceand worse, a searing and cruel indifference to the value of a human life. Id tussled with people so jacked up on PCP that they split my skull. Id flown through a car windshield in pursuit of a killer and faced the wrong end of a gun held by a fourteen-year-old. I told McCarthy that none of that compared to the hatred I saw in the eyes of the people who tried to kill me on January 6th.

McCarthy said, Did you go report to somebody or, you know, run into the fire?

I repeated that I responded to radio distress calls from fellow officers. I paused and looked McCarthy in the eye. I saw where this was going. He seemed eager to eat up time and deflect from the point of the meeting. He probably hoped I would launch into a long, blow-by-blow account: how Id been yanked out of the Capitols Lower West End Tunnel by Trump rioters; how Id been punched, dragged, spit on and stomped, electrocuted by taser; how Id begged for my life, suffered cardiac arrest and a fucking traumatic brain injury, then blacked out Yeah, well, I hadnt come here to recount my story. McCarthy knew the details of my assault.