- Stephanie Murphy is co-chairing a hearing on the events of January 6, 2021.
- Murphy confessed that they had actually saved her life.
- She recalled how when rioters broke into the Capitol and the House chambers.
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida will probably examine the evidence of the violence not just as an investigator but also personally when she co-leads the public hearing on Tuesday about the role of paramilitary groups in attacking the nation’s Capitol.
In a conversation with law enforcement officials who had just testified in court about their confrontation with rioters on January 6, 2021, Murphy confessed that they had actually saved her life.
Murphy stated, “Most people don’t know this, and I don’t think even you know this, but your actions had a profound impact on me.”
She recalled how when rioters broke into the Capitol and the House chambers, she and U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice fled for cover to an office in the basement.
“We had taken refuge in that office because we thought for sure being in that basement at the heart of the Capitol was the safest place we could be. And, it turned out, we ended up at the center of the storm,” she added.
The area where Capitol Police and Metro Police officers were containing rioters, according to Murphy, was roughly 40 paces from her and Rice.
“From that office, in close proximity to where you all held the line, I listened to you struggle, I listened to you yelling out to one another. I listened to you care for one another, directing people back to the makeshift eyewash station that was at the end of our hall. And then I listened to people coughing, having difficulty breathing. But I watched you and heard you all get back into the fight,” she further concluded.
While speaking to the DC Metro Officer Daniel Hodges Murphy said, “You felt like you were the last line of defense. Well, I’m telling you, that you were our last line of defense.”
“During the exact period of time, Officer Hodges … where you were sacrificing your body to hold that door, it gave Congresswoman Rice and I and the Capitol Police officers who had been sent to extract us the freedom of movement on that hallway to escape down the other end,” Murphy recounted. “I shudder to think what would have happened if you had not held that line.”
You can watch her remarks on July 27, 2021, as well as the evidence of Hodges and three other police officers who engaged in riot suppression that day, here on the committee’s YouTube account.
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