Biden Signs Bill Awarding Gold Medals To Police Who Responded To Capitol Attack

“No one had ever ever called me a ‘n****r’ while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer” until Jan. 6, Capitol Officer Henry Dunn said during July testimony to a House select committee investigating the attack.

During a ceremony for the bill signing on Thursday, Biden praised the responding officers, and described the attack as an insurrection.

“I know each time you put on that shield in the morning, whenever you show up for work, you families wonder whether they’re gonna get a call that day, a call they don’t want to receive, hoping you’ll come home safely,” Biden said. “It breaks my heart. It breaks the heart of the nation, to remember you were assaulted by thousands of violent insurrectionists at the Capitol of the United States of America.”

In June, the House bill to award the Gold Medals was approved by 406 lawmakers of both parties and opposed by 21 Republicans . Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted those GOP holdouts earlier this week.

“The same folks who screamed the loudest about the dangers of defunding the police refused to defend the police, the very police that shielded them from the vicious mob on January 6,” Schumer said. “For the life of me, I don’t know how they sleep at night.”

Despite the accolades, plenty of controversy still surrounds the police response on Jan. 6. The Capitol Police rejected offers of additional help before the attack despite warnings of potential violence, and a Senate report from June detailed sweeping law enforcement failures surrounding the attack. The Capitol Police also launched an investigation of dozens of its own officers over their actions on Jan. 6 and suspended six of them in February.

Authorities have still failed to identify a person who placed two pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters the night before the attack.