They call it “Freedom Corner.”
Every night at 7 p.m. ET, supporters of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, transform a small stretch of sidewalk near the D.C. Central Detention Facility in Washington into a vigil.
They set up placards with the images of the five people who died during or after the attempted insurrection, including Ashlei Babbitt, a 35-year-old California woman who was shot and killed by a capitol police officer while climbing through a broken door into the Speaker’s Lobby outside the House Chamber.
The vigil started the day the first “J6er,” as they’re called, was incarcerated, and has been held for 780 days straight. That’s nearly three years.
One of those J6ers, Brandon Fellows, 30, got out of prison in May. He says it was “good seeing some support out there” during his incarceration.
Fellows, from Schenectady, N.Y., was convicted of three misdemeanours including trespassing and disorderly conduct, and obstruction of an official proceeding, which is a felony.
He had illegally entered the Capitol through a broken window, then smoked a joint in a senator’s office. He did an interview with CNN on his way out and gave his real name. That’s how he was caught.
Fellows was sentenced to 37 months in prison plus an additional five months for contempt of court for calling the proceedings a “kangaroo court.” Still, he doesn’t regret his involvement in Jan. 6.
“I just knew I wasn’t going to miss it. And I’m very glad I didn’t miss it,” he said.
In the early days, hundreds used to show up to this vigil, now only a handful of diehards appear.
Sherri Hefner, a retired army medic, has no association to any of the incarcerated J6ers but says she feels it’s her duty to support them — many of them being, she claims, “highly decorated combat veterans.”
Hefner, 58, says she has attended the vigil nearly every day it’s been held.
“It’s my oath not to leave them behind, to be a voice for them,” she said.
Rebecca Zhang, 60, also feels a kinship to the J6ers. She travels for two hours nearly every day to attend the vigil. She says her husband was part of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
“He got persecuted in China. That’s why we moved to [the] U.S.,” said Zhang, who says she didn’t want her kids to grow up in a Communist country.
Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,500 people have been charged for taking part in the attempted insurrection.
Around one-third of those charged allegedly assaulted or obstructed police officers.
‘Hell-bent on killing us’
Michael Fanone was one of more than 140 police officers assaulted that day. He was working in the D.C. police narcotics unit. When he heard officers were being attacked, he says he and his partner threw on their uniforms and rushed to Capitol Hill.
“There were hundreds of D.C. police officers that took it upon themselves to self-dispatch, so to speak, in response to the distress calls coming from the Capitol,” said Fanone.
When he got there, he found barricades had been toppled by rioting Donald Trump supporters determined to get inside the Capitol building, to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win. He joined dozens of injured officers who were still holding the line.
“These guys were hell-bent on killing us, bypassing us and attacking members of Congress and their staff who were hiding inside of the Capitol,” said Fanone.
He was beaten unconscious by the angry mob, and it was all captured on his body camera. Fanone became a police officer after the 9/11 terror attacks, and says he’s tired of seeing the country he loves turned into a battleground by politicians like Trump, who is seeking re-election.
“I was a police officer for 20 years. I experienced people at their worst all the time for more than two decades. I am shocked at how depraved human beings in this country can be towards one another and their willingness to exploit their fellow human beings to further their own careers,” said Fanone.
For the first time in history, Congress’s next certification of the electoral college vote has been designated a National Special Security Event — a label typically reserved for events such as the State of the Union and presidential inaugurations.
It means the U.S. Secret Service will be in charge of security on Jan. 6, 2025, instead of the Capitol police.
“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” said Eric Ranaghan, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division.
He said the Secret Service will work with federal, state and local partners to make sure the event and participants are safe and secure.
Fellows, the formerly jailed J6er, says if Trump doesn’t win the election this year, he would be OK with storming the Capitol again.
“I don’t wish that there would be violence, but I think it’s at that point where it’s kind of necessary,” said Fellows.
He says while hundreds of people died in the American Civil War, a lot of good came out of it, like the abolition of slavery.
“We got a unified country,” said Fellows.
He wants to see that again.
“I’m OK with sort of a revolution happening,” said Fellows.
That is what U.S. security services are determined to prevent.
