'I absolutely thought we were not going to survive,' Congresswoman says of Capitol riot 

Story Transcript

Norma Torres says people don't understand how close the U.S. came one year ago to losing its democracy.

Torres, a Democratic Congresswoman from California, was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the building and tried to prevent Congress from certifying the federal election results in favour of Joe Biden.

Five people — a Capitol Police officer and four protesters — died either during or after the hours-long melee on Capitol Hill.

Torres spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off about her experience that day. Here is part of their conversation.

What is the moment that plays most often in your head of that day, January 6th of last year?

The moment when they announced that we were going to be locked down because the officers could not hold the line outside, that the U.S. Capitol had been breached and members of Congress needed to stay put and needed to stay quiet and needed to lay down on the floor.

That must have raised every possibility of what might happen next.

That announcement was followed pretty quick by a gunshot that was fired, by the sounds of tear gas being deployed and then seeing, from the balcony floor, white smoke rising.

I remember running around, trying to help everyone stay calm and trying to find gas masks that supposedly were there available to us. None of us knew where they were. We didn't realize that they were just under the floor where we were sitting.

I had never been in an environment like that before. Even … travelling through Afghanistan with our U.S. military and having received a briefing there and having to wear a bullet-proof vest and all of that, it didn't even compare.

It was unbelievable what was happening. The noise of the insurrectionists that were trying to reach us. The banging on the walls. The glass breaking. It sounded as if a herd of elephants was fast approaching and everything was crashing around us.

There were calls amongst those insurrectionists to get [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, to hang [former vice-president] Mike Pence. There were other kinds of threats as well. Did you at any point think you were not going to survive?

I absolutely thought we were not going to survive. 

The fear of not knowing: How are we going to get out of here? How are we going to defend ourselves? And then arming ourselves with pens and pencils was all we had in our purses, in our pockets.

But really looking around at the people who were with me, the members, all Democrats, you know, women of colour, elderly members of Congress, and thinking: Who will be the first that these people are going to attack? Who will be the first to go down? Who is going to defend us at that moment?

Some of my colleagues have said that there was one officer at each of those doors in the balcony, but in total, I only saw two — the one that was immediately behind where I was, that ultimately put on my gas mask, and the female officer on the other side that ultimately gave us directions and escorted us out as we were running for our lives

At that time when you were running for your life, your son, Christopher, called you, didn't he?

When we ran out of there and we turned the first corner to go down a stairwell, just before Christopher called me, we were faced with a mob that was face down, about a dozen people, and just a handful of officers in plainclothes were holding them at gunpoint.

One officer that was yelling for us to come her way and telling us to run down the stairs, a female officer, she had blood on her chest. 

So as I looked at that, and the shock of seeing the actual crime scene outside of the four walls that were protecting us, keeping us safe, as I take the first three steps down that stairwell, was when Christopher called.

He is a police officer here in California. And up until then, I had not called or texted with my family because I felt that I needed my composure, and I felt that if I talked to my husband or my children that I would lose that composure and I need it to survive at that moment.

But I couldn't ignore a call from my son, and I answered it. And the only thing that I really regret that day was answering that call and telling my police officer son that his mother was running for her life. I can't even imagine the trauma that caused him.

You and your colleagues, those who were on the floor of the gallery, you were the last to get out, to be ushered out. I understand that you've all kept in touch, that you exchange messages, you have Zoom calls, you have a support network. How important is that to you?

We check in with each other and dialogue with each other every single day. Not a day goes by that we don't talk to each other.

We went through counselling together. We did Zoom calls with therapists together. We just did one a couple of days ago. We're going to have another one at the end of the week. 

We cannot hand over and deliver our country, our nation, our democracy over to homegrown terrorists or anyone that wishes to do us harm like they attempted that day a year ago.- U.S. Rep. Norma Torres

I'm sure you're aware that in recent weeks there have been many ominous articles written that what happened last year was not the end of the Trump era; it was the beginning of something else. And even former generals [are] talking about the next insurrection and how likely it could actually succeed unless lawmakers are able to bridge those divides, bring things together, change things, put things in place. What have you seen in this past year that would give you confidence that this can be avoided, the worst of what people are saying can be avoided?

The worse that continues to happen every single day that I go to work at the U.S. Capitol … is the realization that I work in a violent work environment. That every single day I am attacked as a member of Congress, by not a stranger on the street, but by my own colleagues, Republican colleagues, that continue to promote the big lie [that Biden didn't really beat Trump in the last federal election], that continue to call … on people to organize themselves against our government.

I do not believe that the American people understand how close we came to losing our democracy, the rule of law and our freedoms as we know them and as we enjoy them.

[Democrats are] three-plus in Congress…. Had they breached any one of us or three of us and harmed us in any way, we would not have been able to finish our job of certifying an election that had been already certified by 50 states.

In the Senate, they are at 50 … Democrats [and] 50 Republicans. Had they gotten the hold of any one of our … Democratic senators, that election would not have been certified and America would have changed. 

We cannot hand over and deliver our country, our nation, our democracy over to homegrown terrorists or anyone that wishes to do us harm like they attempted that day a year ago. 

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from The Associated Press. Interview produced by Kate Swoger. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.