On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, an official plaque honoring the police officers on duty that day is nowhere to be found. It's not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren't publicly known, though the AP reports it's believed to be in storage. House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration's Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss a police officers' lawsuit asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.
For months, about 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have protested this absence by mounting poster-board-style replicas of the plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances. "On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021," reads the faux bronze stand-in for the real thing. "Their heroism will never be forgotten." In a capital city lined with historical monuments, the plaque was intended to become a simple but permanent marker, situated near the Capitol's west front, where some of the most violent fighting took place.
"That's why you put up a plaque," said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa. "You respect the memory and the service of the people involved." Five years ago, the jarring scene watched the world over was declared an "insurrection" by the then-GOP leader of the Senate, while the House GOP leader called it his "saddest day" in Congress. But those condemnations have since faded. "Will January 6 be seen as the seminal moment when democracy was in peril?" asked Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University. Or will it be remembered as "a weird one-off? There's not as much consensus on that as one would have thought on the fifth anniversary."
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