DC police officer Daniel Hodges says Capitol rioters tried to recruit him because he was white: 'Are you my brother?'

Bryan Metzger
Updated ·2 min read

  • MPD Officer Daniel Hodges said he was treated differently than his non-white fellow officers.

  • "Some of them would try to, try to recruit me," he said. "One of them came up to me and said, 'Are you my brother?'"

  • He noted there were many white supremacist-linked organizations at the Capitol assault.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

At the opening hearing of the January 6th select committee on Tuesday, DC Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges said he was "recruited" to join the mob by some rioters during the Capitol riot.

The stunning testimony from Hodges came after one member asked him why he had called the Jan 6th riot a "white nationalist insurrection."

"Officer Hodges, you characterized the attack on the Capitol as a 'white nationalist insurrection.' Can you describe what you saw that led you to label the attack that way?" asked Rep. Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat, during the opening session of the select committee to investigate the January 6 siege.

Hodges, noting that the pro-Trump mob was made up of "overwhelmingly white males" and that they didn't say anything "especially xenophobic" to him, said he was treated differently than his non-white fellow officers.

"Some of them would try to, try to recruit me," he told the committee. "One of them came up to me and said, 'Are you my brother?'"

He went on to note that there were many white supremacist-linked organizations at the Capitol on January 6th. "Three percenters, Oath Keepers, that kind of thing," he said.

"People who associate with Donald Trump, I find more likely to subscribe to that kind of belief system," he added.

Hodges and other officers' testimony highlighted the overt racism of the insurrectionists. A fellow officer testifying before the committee, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, testified that he and other officers of color faced a "torrent" of racist epithets and threats during the insurrection.

Hodges also repeatedly referred to the rioters as "terrorists" during the hearing, and recounted in detail what it was like to be crushed in a revolving door by the pro-Trump mob. A video of the incident went viral online earlier this year.

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