Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump’s supporters broke into the building, echoing his false claims of a stolen election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.

“They have tried to erase what I did” with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. “I lost my career, my health, and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”

Five years since the siege, Gonell and some of the other police officers who fought off the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted those pardons. Their struggle has been compounded by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress minimizing the violence that the officers encountered.

“It’s been a difficult year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought near Gonell in a tunnel on the West Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.

“A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.

Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger took over the department six months after the riot. He said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed ” to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.

Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence, despite a massive trove of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.

Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were most violent toward the police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their convictions for harming the officers and breaking into the building “a grave national injustice.”

“I think that was wrong,” Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump’s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Eveland said, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case.

“I’ve had a hard time processing that,” said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped to push them off the Capitol grounds.

The pardons “erased what little justice there was,” said former Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6. He left the force several months afterward.

Hodges and Gonell have been speaking out about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan 6. Since then, they have received support but also backlash.

At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges testified again as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asked the other witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardons of the rioters, including for those who injured Hodges. Three of the witnesses, all called by Republicans, raised their hands.

“I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

It has not just been politicians or the rioters who have doubted the police. It also is friends and family.

“My biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.

“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,” he said.

As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department had to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services when he arrived, he said, and they were put in to place.

“The officers who were there and were in the fight — we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed,” Manger said.

Manger, who retired in May, also oversaw major improvements to the department’s training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “a great deal safer” than it was when he arrived.

“If that exact same thing happened again, they would have never breached the building, they would have never gotten inside, they would have never disrupted the electoral count,” Manger said.

Pingeon, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways “unrecognizable” from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.

“It was a wake-up call,” he said.

Pingeon, who was attacked and knocked to the ground as he tried to prevent people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. He has dealt with his experience by painting images of the Capitol and his time there, as well as advocating for nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.

“The real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,” he said.

Gonell left the Capitol Police because of his injuries. He has not returned to service, though he hopes to work again. He wrote a book about his experience, and he said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.

While many of the officers who were there have stayed quiet about their experiences, Eveland said he decided that it was important to talk publicly about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint.”

Still, he said, “I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because something happened to me and was a major part of my world doesn’t mean that everyone else has to understand that or even be sympathetic to that.”

He added: “The only thing I can do is tell my story, and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually listen.”

There was clutch fourth-quarter defense, inspiring two-way play from Toumani Camara and another stat-stuffing performance by Deni Avdija.

But perhaps no one or no thing meant more to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday than Donovan Clingan.

The starting center’s combination of defense, emotion and dominance powered the Blazers to a 114-108 win over the Boston Celtics before 17,949 at the Moda Center.

“I think he was our best defensive player,” Blazers acting coach Tiago Splitter said of Clingan. “Just his presence, reading every situation, talking, leading. He was a big part of our win.”

Clingan finished with 18 points and 18 rebounds, recording his ninth double-double of the season, as the Blazers (13-19) ended a three-game losing streak. He was suffocating early, producing 11 points and eight rebounds in the first quarter. He was clutch late, adding five points and six rebounds in the fourth. And he was a mountain of energy and intensity throughout.

He stared down Celtics players after monster two-handed dunks. He came oh-so-close to drawing a technical foul in the second half, when he towered over a Boston player after finishing a dunk. And he punctuated big shots with screams to the rafters and raised arms.

The Blazers seemed to feed off his energy and emotion, riding it all the way a much-needed win.

“He’s one of those dudes that scores (and) looks at the opponent,” Splitter said. “He tries to bring some juice every time he (has) a good play or a block or something like that, just to pass (it along) to the rest of the guys, the energy, the belief that he has. He’s very important for our defense, for our offense, for the whole locker room’s energy. He’s one of those guys.”

Of course, it took more than Clingan for the shorthanded Blazers to topple the Celtics (19-12).

Camara finished with 20 points, made four of five three-pointers in the second half and played imposing defense. Avdija overcame a shaky first half that included five turnovers to produce 24 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds. Shaedon Sharpe added 26 points and five rebounds and Caleb Love scored 18 points off the bench, which included 10 crucial points in the fourth quarter.

Boston had control for most of the first half and built a 10-point lead in the third quarter, thanks in large part to a breathtaking performance by Jaylen Brown, who torched the Blazers with 27 points on 11-for-16 shooting before halftime.

But Splitter tweaked his defense to feature a swarm of double teams and blitzes at the Celtics’ All-Star forward, and it helped fuel a second-half turnaround.

Portland opened the third quarter by outscoring Boston 12-2 and Brown managed just 10 points on 3-for-8 shooting after halftime.

Still, like most of the Blazers’ games this season, the outcome came down to clutch time. And this time, the Blazers’ defense was the difference.

Portland held Boston to three points over the final two minutes, 41 seconds of the game, allowing just one field goal — a Derrick White three-pointer with 43.0 seconds left. Otherwise, the Blazers’ defense was stifling, forcing two missed shots and four turnovers, including two on the Celtics’ final two possessions of the game. The Celtics scored just 45 points in the second half, including 23 in the pivotal fourth quarter.

“I think Sidy (Cissoko) brought energy,” Splitter said. “Toumani always (does). D.C. was protecting the rim, his rebounding was huge. But as a group, the energy was there. We were fighting every screen. They have great players that can shoot the ball. They’re one of the best shooting teams in the league. So (we) had to fight all those screens, getting over or under, and (we) did a good job navigating those positions.”

Top performers

Avdija finished with 20 or more points for the 26th time this season and recorded double-digits in assists for the fifth time this season.

Brown finished with 37 points, seven rebounds and four assists for the Celtics, who had won four in a row and nine of 11.

A pair of reunions

Anfernee Simons returned to the Moda Center for the first time as a visitor, finishing with 13 points, three rebounds, two steals and one assist in 19 minutes.

Simons, who spent his first seven seasons with the Blazers, was traded to the Celtics in the offseason in a move that brought Jrue Holiday to Portland. Simons came off the bench for Boston on Sunday and swished his first shot — a three — 17 seconds later. But his shot was mostly cold the rest of the night as Simons made just 4 of 11 field goals, including 2 of 6 threes.

Meanwhile, Payton Pritchard, who went to West Linn High School and played for the Oregon Ducks, recorded nine points, five assists, five rebounds and two steals in 38 minutes.