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WASHINGTON — Practically three years in the past to the day, then-Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn got here nose to nose with a violent mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters. Now he hopes to hitch the ranks of lawmakers he tried to guard on that day and the various since.
On Friday, the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault, Dunn launched a marketing campaign in Maryland’s third Congressional District, becoming a member of a crowded Democratic main to interchange retiring Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes.
“Due to Jan. 6 and every thing that occurred afterwards, it’s clear how a lot of a risk the extinction of our democracy is — it’s very current proper now,” Dunn stated in a telephone interview Thursday forward of his announcement.
“I do imagine that we’re actually one election cycle away from the extinction of our democracy,” he added.
Dunn, a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police pressure, spent the months after the Capitol riot recounting his story from that day, when he was bodily attacked by the mob, which additionally hurled racial slurs at him.
Dunn delivered emotional testimony on the Home Jan. 6 committee’s inaugural listening to, and he was usually outspoken in regards to the expertise he and different officers had on that day. He participated in a number of congressional hearings and even wrote a ebook this fall pushing for accountability.
Not removed from the Capitol, Dunn has additionally been a frequent presence on the federal courthouse, the place he has testified in and noticed among the greater than 1,200 circumstances in opposition to Jan. 6 defendants which have been working their method by means of the court docket system. Dunn and a few of his fellow officers confirmed up at former President Donald Trump’s first court docket look in his Jan. 6 prosecution over the summer time, and Dunn testified in the course of the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial in 2022.
“We have now dozens of officers down. They’re taking them out on stretchers. Y’all are f—ing us up,” Dunn instructed rioters in a video performed to the jury within the Oath Keepers case.
“I used to be distressed, I used to be indignant, and I used to be scared,” Dunn testified at that trial. “Throughout the occasion, it was nearly surviving.”
Dunn stated it was troublesome to placed on his police uniform after Jan. 6 and head to the Capitol the place he skilled trauma that also haunts him right this moment. However that have additionally served as certainly one of his largest motivators when he weighed whether or not to run for Congress.
“As a Capitol Police officer, I used to be very restricted to what I can do, to what I can say, the criticisms of members who I defend, who I disagree with,” Dunn stated Thursday.
“What extra can I try this I haven’t executed already as a police officer?” Dunn added later. “So now operating offers me a seat on the desk, the place perhaps now I’m simply an annoying speaking head, however now I’m their equal, I’m their colleague. And I’ve a voice, I’ve a vote, and I can’t be dismissed that method.”
To grow to be that colleague, Dunn — who resigned from the Capitol Police on Dec. 17 — will first need to make it by means of an already crowded Democratic main to symbolize the district, which is south of Baltimore. Ten Democratic candidates, together with not less than one state legislator, are already operating, and extra might bounce into the race.
“I utterly recognize all of the work that they’ve executed. I imagine that every one of our values are aligned,” Dunn stated. “Nonetheless, I imagine at this second I’m the most effective individual for this job as a result of I bodily — I spent the final 15 years of my life defending democracy.”
Whoever wins the Democratic main can be favored to win in November. Sarbanes gained a ninth time period in 2022 by 20 share factors, and President Joe Biden carried the third District by 26 factors in 2020, in keeping with calculations from Each day Kos Elections.
Dunn doesn’t reside within the district, however he stated he would transfer to it if he’s elected.
Requested which points particular to Maryland he plans to concentrate on in his marketing campaign, Dunn pointed to infrastructure, noting the visitors to journey to Baltimore, in addition to psychological well being and crime. However he stated different points, reminiscent of abortion and gun management, fall below a broader umbrella that can the primary focus of his marketing campaign.
“My platform is democracy,” Dunn stated.
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