As rioters attempted to break down the doors of the U.S. House of Representatives, and police pointed their guns through the broken glass of those chamber doors, Rep. Jason Crow of Aurora was watching from the gallery.
“They evacuated the folks on the floor but those of us in the gallery actually got trapped for like 20 minutes as the rioters stormed the stairwells and the doors. So, Capitol Police actually locked the doors of the chamber and started piling furniture up on the doors to barricade them, while holding their guns out,” he recalled.
“I got into ranger mode a little bit,” the Army combat veteran said. “Most of the members didn’t know how to use the emergency masks, so I was helping them get their emergency masks out of the bags and helped instruct a bunch of folks on how to put it on and how to use it. I wasn’t going to leave the House floor until every member was gone, so I waited until we were able to get everybody out.”
The Democratic congressman, a veteran of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, never believed he would witness in America what he witnessed Wednesday: a takeover of the U.S. Capitol. “It is a very, very dark day and we have a lot of work ahead.”
“The president is directly to blame but the president has shown us for a very long time who he is,” Crow said of President Donald Trump. “His enablers, the people around him, the members of Congress, allowed us to get to this point. This is the inevitable conclusion of Donald Trump. But people let him get this far, and we have to have a very hard conversation about why and how.”
The attack on the Capitol, which forced Colorado members of Congress to flee into more secure locations, was condemned by members of both political parties. Republican Rep. Ken Buck wrote on Twitter, “Violence and anarchy must be condemned, we are a nation of laws. Law enforcement must end this now.”
Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat, was on the House floor as rioters approached.
“Over the course of 10, 15 minutes, there was a series of escalating warnings. Finally, it became very clear that protesters had broken all barriers and were slamming on the doors that enter into the House chambers,” he recalled in an interview. “So, we were evacuated off of the House floor and eventually made our way to a series of different locations and finally a secure location.”
Like many Coloradans in Congress, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, an Arvada Democrat, said in an interview that he was greatly saddened by the day’s events.
“Over the course of the last month or so, you could see this building. I didn’t expect it would get to this level but it has,” the congressman said.
“I think the president has fomented this. There have been 60 court cases, counts and recounts, and he lost. He lost the popular vote, he lost the electoral vote, and over the course of the history of the country, when somebody has lost, everything moves forward, the new administration comes in on January 20th. I don’t think we’ve seen this kind of resistance to election results before. This is a shame.”
Soon before the House was evacuated, Neguse and Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Rifle Republican, debated whether to certify the election results in Arizona, with Neguse in favor and Boebert objecting.
“Madam speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now,” Boebert yelled on the House floor. “I promised my voters to be their voice.”
“The violence we saw today is inexcusable. Pray for America,” she said on Twitter after the riots.
Colorado Democrats were unsparing in not only their denunciations of the rioters, but also in their denunciations of the president’s rhetoric which preceded the riots.
“President Trump instigated a violent attack on our government in an attempt to remain in power against the will of the people,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver. “He should be impeached, removed from office and arrested immediately.”
When asked whether the president committed an impeachable offense, Neguse said, “Certainly, I think he has” but went on to say that is a debate for a different day. On Wednesday, he was focused on finishing the certification process.
“It’s a difficult day for our republic,” Neguse said, “but we will endure.”
