On Jan. 6, 2021, 140 police officers were injured defending the U.S. Capitol from a violent mob of President Trump`s supporters. Five years later, many still live with the physical and psychological damage from that day.

NPR Investigations correspondent Tom Dreisbach sat down with two officers who defended the Capitol - Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges - to watch their police body camera footage from Jan. 6. Both were subjected to some of the most brutal violence of the day, inside a tunnel where police were outnumbered by rioters armed with flagpoles, stun guns, crutches, stolen police shields and chemical sprays.

Fanone, Hodges and other officers say that Trump`s mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters has exacerbated the trauma of that day. Both Fanone and Hodges have received death threats and been called "crisis actors." But the footage from their body-cameras shows the reality of what they experienced.

Both videos come from NPR`s Jan. 6 archive, part of a long-term effort to preserve the historical record - a public database tracking every arrest, charge, verdict and sentence related to the attack. In Dec. 2025, the archive expanded to include police body-camera and surveillance video and other courtroom evidence, making this material available for anyone to examine firsthand.