Who is officer Caroline Edwards and what did she testify in the January 6 Capitol attack hearing?
The Capitol police officer was wounded in the attack and was testifying before the Senate committee describing it as a “war scene”.
Caroline Edwards was one of the police on site to defend the Capitol during the January 6th 2020 riots. During the assault, she was injured when knocked down a flight of stairs. She was knocked unconcious and has yet to rejoin the unit she was with during the assault.
According to the committee, the 31-year old was the first officer injured during the riot.
“Even after suffering a traumatic brain injury, Officer Edwards patrolled the Capitol’s West Plaza and prevented many rioters from entering the Capitol building,” the select committee said.
Her testimony offered evidence to the committee, and those viewing at home, the very real danger posed by the riot.
What did she say at the hearing?
“I can remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was a war scene,” she told the committee. “Officers on the ground. They were bleeding, on the ground, throwing up,” she said.
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” she added. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”
In her testimony, she explained how police officer Brian Sicknick was pepper-sprayed. “He was ghostly pale, which I figured at that point that he had been sprayed and I was concerned,” she said. Sicknick died after the attack.
“It was something I’d seen out of the movies,” she said. “I saw friends with blood all over their faces,” she said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”
“I’m trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd, but I’m not combat trained,” She said. “That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat.”