President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday afternoon that would award medals honoring the police officers who defended the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection.
There are four medals in total. One will be displayed at Capitol Police headquarters, one at the Metropolitan Police Department, one at the Capitol and one at the Smithsonian Institution.
Hundreds of officers from the two police departments responded to the attack and dozens were beaten and injured.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died after trying to stop the rioters. Four officers died by suicide: Two immediately following the riot and two more died in July.
“We are grieving as a department,” the Metropolitan Police Department wrote in a statement.
U.S. Senator Susan Collins said her heart goes out to the families of the officers who took their own lives. “I hope each and every one of us will take time today to thank these courageous men and women who are working so hard to keep us safe, many of whom still bear the physical injuries and the emotional trauma of that dark day in our nation’s history,” Collins said.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who introduced the bill in the Senate, said she doesn’t know the reasons for the two officers’ deaths in July but said, “at some point it’s not a coincidence.” She called the suicides “just one more sad and tragic story of people who were there protecting us who clearly suffered from that day.”
HR 3325 passed in the Senate without objection Tuesday. U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate Rules panel, said the medals recognize “the selflessness, the dedication, the willingness to stand in the way of danger.” Blunt said he hopes they will send “a clear message” of appreciation to the two departments.
The Senate vote followed a House vote back in June, where all but 21 representatives voted for it. Some of the objectors took issue with the language in the bill that referred to the people who attacked the Capitol as a “mob of insurrectionists”.
