- US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said he does not think some of the Capitol rioters' sentences are harsh enough.
- "The charges they're getting do not compare to the mental and physical injuries some of the police officers, including myself, got," he said.
- Gonell was stationed outside of the west entrance to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
A US Capitol police officer told NPR he doesn't think the January 6 rioters' jail sentences are harsh enough.
"Their jail time is less than my recovery time," US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who is still recovering from an injured shoulder and is in therapy for anxiety related to January 6, told NPR.
"The charges they're getting do not compare to the mental and physical injuries some of the police officers, including myself, got," Gonell added.
Gonell told NPR he was stationed outside the west entrance to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he described the scene, in which rioters stormed the building as Congress debated electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, as a "medieval battleground."
Seven hundred and twenty seven people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection so far, and Gonell told NPR that he hopes there will be "stiff penalties" in future sentencings.
Gonell returned to work 10 months after the insurrection but is still on administrative duties because of his injuries.
He told NPR the only thing on his mind as the one-year anniversary of the insurrection looms is "anxiety."
Because of the anxiety, Gonell has taken off work for January 6, 2022.
"A lot of the officers have in mind the possibility of this being a recurring annual or every four year thing, which is why officers like myself are being outspoken about it, because we don't want to go through this again," Gonell said.