Four years later, a peaceful transfer of power

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Four years ago today, the U.S. Capitol was under siege.

Rioters who'd been repeatedly told by then-President Donald Trump that the election had been stolen pushed down barricades, broke glass, assaulted Capitol Police officers and forced their way into the building, all in an attempt to delay or prevent the counting of Electoral College votes.

Lawmakers fled or sheltered in place, protected by Capitol Police.

In the wake of the insurrection, a protester lay dead, police officers suffered injuries both visible and invisible, but members of Congress returned to certify the results of the 2020 election for President Joe Biden.

Today, things could not have been more different.

WATCH: With no disruptions, Congress certifies Trump's 2024 electoral victory

Security was still tight, but no swelling crowds massed outside the Capitol. No Republican lawmakers raised objections to counting votes. The announcements of results were interrupted only by applause.

Presiding over the joint session of Congress was Vice President Kamala Harris, who'd lost the November election to Trump. She listened stoically as members of Congress took turns announcing the vote tallies from the states.

Finally, the official end of the 2024 election came.

"The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes," Harris said, as Republicans rose in a standing ovation.
After a couple bangs of the gavel to restore order, she continued.

What a difference four years makes

It was a markedly different scene four years ago when Vice President Mike Pence — who'd lost the election — presided over a joint session punctuated by objections from Republicans to electoral votes from various swing states, which prompted the joint session to dissolve and consider the facts of each case. (Although the Trump campaign had filed scores of lawsuits across the country, no evidence has ever emerged to show the 2020 results were wrong.)

Meanwhile, outside the Capitol, the crowd chanted, grew and finally began to overrun police barricades.

"I asked myself two questions in my head a lot that day," said former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn in an interview in May. "How is this going to end? And is this really happening? So it was kind of like surreal and unbelievable that it was occurring while it was occurring."

Dunn survived that day, but other officers did not.

Officer Brian Sicknick, who was assaulted by rioters, suffered two strokes after the Jan. 6 riot and died thereafter. Other officers died by suicide. Some would later recall being pepper sprayed, crushed inside Capitol hallways and beaten with objects including flag poles — one with the American flag still attached.

Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell still has a piece of broken glass from the west front of the Capitol that he keeps as a reminder of what happened that day.

"These fragments of glass were the first door, from the first door that was breached in the Capitol, where I almost died, where I almost gave my life, protecting all those elected officials," Gonell said in May during a visit to Las Vegas.

Although years have passed, Gonell said he still has trouble with Trump and others referring to the more than 1,200 people incarcerated for committing crimes that day as "patriots," or even "hostages."

"Apparently, they are hostages," Gonell said. "Then who are we? The bad guys?"

He expounded on his experience in a gripping Sunday op-ed in the New York Times that coincided with Monday's grim anniversary.

Protest gone wrong

Former Assemblywoman Annie Black, R-Clark County, attended the protest but did not go inside the Capitol building or any restricted area. She said things were fairly normal until some in the crowd began to remove barricades set up to keep crowds back.

"So we thought, you know, this will be a historic event, we'll go protest, never imagining that this was going to happen," Black said on Monday. "And so it was pretty much from the time that people started crossing [the barricades], it was like, whoa, this isn't normal. This could be bad."

Black said some in the crowd were telling each other that Capitol Police were allowing people to approach the building, but that she didn't, fearing what actions law enforcement officers might take to quell any disturbance. As she made her way back to her hotel, she saw an even larger throng of people on the other side of the Capitol.

Asked about the origins of the melee that day, Black blamed political rhetoric, although she said that any group of people egged on for long enough could take the law into their own hands.

"Nowadays in politics, there's this tendency to make people run around like their hair is on fire, to get them to vote, to get them activated," she said.

Republicans are divided on the idea of pardoning the January 6 convicts.

Some, such as Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, advocate for blanket pardons for everyone charged in the case, while others, such as Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, back pardons for non-violent protesters.

A Scripps News poll released last month found 64% of people oppose pardons for the perpetrators, including 40% of Republicans.

Black said everybody at the Capitol that day had a choice.

"We all had a choice to make," she said, "and I didn't make that choice, so I think that, yeah, there are extenuating circumstances, but at the end of the day, you have to take responsibility for your own actions. And we know what's right and wrong."

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