https://www.npr.org/2025/01/05/nx-s1-5200594/jan-6-attack-capitol-riot-victims-violence

For the millions of Americans who watch the presidential inauguration every four years, the Lower West Terrace Tunnel of the U.S. Capitol is a familiar site.

The incoming president walks through that tunnel and on to the inaugural platform, before taking the oath of office.

On Jan. 6, 2021, it was a crime scene - the site of a bloody, hourslong struggle between law enforcement and a mob of supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.

"My fellow officers and I were punched, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants by a violent mob," Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell testified to Congress about his experience in the tunnel on Jan. 6. "I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself: 'this is how I'm going to die - defending this entrance.'"

Now, Trump is poised to walk through that same tunnel again as president-elect, after he successfully campaigned on a message that people convicted and charged of crimes for their actions on Jan. 6 are "political prisoners" and "patriots" who deserve presidential pardons. Trump opened his first rally of the presidential campaign with a rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" recorded from a jailhouse phone by Jan. 6 defendants, including an alleged "Nazi sympathizer" and others accused of violent assault. During the campaign, he referred to Jan. 6 as a "day of love."

For Gonell and other victims of that day's violence, Trump's electoral victory was a gut punch.

"It feels sometimes, like, what did I risk my life for?" Gonell told NPR.