On Wednesday, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris arrived at the inauguration event, she was escorted by none other than U.S. Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who recently attracted widespread attention for facing off against a group of the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol building on January 6. Goodman, who is Black, stood alone against the rioters in the vicinity of the Senate chambers while members of Congress sheltered inside, and “experts say he wasn’t fleeing, but luring the mob away from the Senate chambers,” The Washington Post explains. Goodman’s stand against the mob could have easily helped save lives on an already chaotic day — every additional second in which lawmakers could take cover mattered.
Check out an image of Goodman with Harris below:
And there is Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, escorting VP-elect @KamalaHarris pic.twitter.com/AHOf3bKCve
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) January 20, 2021
Goodman has apparently not commented publicly about the incident — according to a friend and fellow officer recently speaking to The Washington Post, “the attention is a little scary for him.” For one, he’s apparently been concerned about being targeted by some of the extremists who showed up at the Capitol on January 6, as members of Congress were inside and working through the motions of formally certifying the electoral college outcome (meaning Biden’s victory). Nevertheless, Goodman “said he’d do the same thing again,” according to that same friend and fellow Capitol officer.
In the wake of the Capitol rioting and in the lead-up to the inauguration event this Wednesday, authorities imposed very strict security measures in the area, including lockdowns around critical areas of the city of Washington, D.C. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic — the seriousness of which somehow became a matter of political debate with Trump in the White House — the Biden team already apparently planned on significantly scaled down festivities. On Tuesday evening, Biden, Harris, and others actually gathered near the Lincoln Memorial for a service in honor of the many lives lost due to the pandemic — no matter the long months of devastation in the U.S. prior to Biden’s election, the Trump administration never held a similar memorial event.
