WASHINGTON (CN) — For their defense of the U.S. Capitol during the violent assault that took place there on Jan. 6, officers of the Capitol Police force will receive the congressional gold medal, the Senate agreed on Tuesday.
As senators convened the day’s legislative session to bestow the honor on U.S. Capitol Police through a unanimous procedural vote, gunshots fired near the Pentagon put the nation’s capital on high alert.
The Pentagon, located in Arlington, Virginia, is only miles from the U.S. Capitol, which was put on lockdown Tuesday morning after multiple injuries were reported in the shooting. One police officer was among those who were shot Tuesday and was killed in the melee.
At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Pentagon Police Chief Woodrow Kusse said that the scene was made secure and there is “no ongoing threat” to the area. Kusse would not provide further details when asked whether the attack involved any specific targeting of the Pentagon.
According to an alert issued by the Pentagon Protection Force Protection Agency via Twitter, shots were fired near a Metro bus platform that is part of the Pentagon’s Transit Center. A reporter on the scene with the Associated Press said multiple shots were heard and police were heard yelling “shooter.”
Several police cars quickly swarmed one of the many entrances of the highly secured building, as multiple helicopters flew over the nation’s military headquarters.
The grim event near the Pentagon comes less than 24 hours after it was revealed that yet another police officer who protected the Capitol during the insurrection has died of suicide.
Metropolitan Police Department Officer Kyle DeFreytag, who first came aboard the force in 2016, worked the curfew enforcement beat at the Capitol on Jan 6.
According to a spokesperson from the department, DeFreytag was found dead on July 10. The spokesperson confirmed the cause of death was suicide.
DeFreytag’s death was announced hours after the department also disclosed that another Metro police officer, Gunther Hashida, was found dead in his home of suicide. Hashida served the department for 18 years.
DeFreytag and Hashida are now two more law enforcement officers added to a list of those who have taken their lives following the insurrection where they and other first responders endured hours of violence and heinous verbal abuse.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood and Metro Police Department Officer Jeffrey Smith also died by suicide just days after Jan. 6.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes one day after fending off rioters on the front lines.
In a statement early Tuesday before the shooting at the Pentagon, President Joe Biden offered his condolences for the latest fallen officers.
“When the United States Capitol and our very democracy were under attack on January 6th, Officers Hashida and DeFreytag courageously risked their lives to defend them. They were American heroes. Jill and I are keeping their loved ones in our prayers during this difficult time,” he said.
In June, the House of Representatives voted 406-21 to award congressional gold medals to all police who responded to the mob peopled largely by supporters of former President Donald Trump, white supremacists, other extremists and rioters.
Now as deaths among law enforcement pile up, Tuesday’s vote appeared drastically different in tone and timbre compared to other sessions where lawmakers in both congressional bodies often bickered amongst themselves over how to honor those who protected them from a mob that erected gallows on the Capitol lawn and issued calls for execution as they prowled the complex.
Tuesday’s vote was finalized through a unanimous consent request meaning only one senator would need to object on the floor when the request to award the officers was introduced.
There was no objection. Now the bill giving all officers the gold medal will go to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.
“The gold medal is about setting the record straight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday. “We have a moral obligation to never forget what our first responders faced down.”
A contingent of over a dozen Republican lawmakers who have expressed regularly loyalty to Trump and who voted in favor of overturning the election results in 2020 opposed awarding the medals when the measure was first introduced this spring.
Their opposition outwardly stemmed from language in the bill that used the term “insurrection” as it described what happened on Jan. 6.
Eventual modifications to the House bill garnered widespread support from Democrats and Republicans because it overwhelmingly focused on the bravery and service performed by all officers on Jan. 6, not just one.
The Senate voted in February to award U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman with the congressional gold medal for his service. Goodman, with exceptionally quick thinking as the building was breached, lured a large group of rioters away from the Senate chamber.
A reporter captured Goodman's work on his cellphone, and in footage Goodman is seen first tapping one of the rioters on the chest to entice the group away before running quickly up a stairwell as the mob pursued him.
Running around a corner, Goodman led the mob right to where his backup was waiting.
In a statement Tuesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi mourned the deaths of officers who defended the Capitol complex and prevented further destruction.
“The congressional community and country are heartbroken … the loss of fallen officers who defended our democracy that day is devastating and each life lost is a tragedy,” Pelosi said.
A representative from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy did not respond to request for comment.
The select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol held its inaugural hearing last month in a proceeding that featured hours of intense and emotional testimony from U.S. Capitol Police and Metro Police Department officers who were beaten, Tased, lacerated and brutalized within what they thought was mere inches of their lives.
The next hearing is not expected for several weeks as the House is currently on recess.
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