Years of Jan. 6 police lies compound pain for family of late Rosanne Boyland

“Never tell lies.”

Those three words are perched atop the opening paragraph of “American Shield,” the 2023 autobiography of former U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell.

Since the protests and riot at the U.S. Capitol, Gonell has become one of the most prominent faces of Jan. 6, 2021.

He gave emotional testimony on national television before the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee and appeared as a frequent prosecution witness in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. News photos and video of him dabbing tears from his eyes have been seen in mainstream media around the world.

'Get her up, please! Save her life!'

Gonell has railed against President Donald J. Trump, bitterly blaming him for the Jan. 6 violence and accusing his supporters — “white nationalists” — of attempting a “coup,” even though Trump was still in office on Jan. 6, 2021.

For all of his highly partisan visibility — including a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and campaigning for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — some of Gonell’s public proclamations are drawing critical review for the first time.

They are coming up short on honesty.

The long-standing lies by Gonell and his cohort, USCP Officer Harry Dunn, have eaten at the hearts of Bret and Cheryl Boyland of Kennesaw, Ga., the parents of Rosanne Boyland.

“They didn’t have to lie and make stuff up. That is what I’ve been shaking my head at over the past four years,” Bret Boyland told Blaze News. “They lied to Congress under sworn testimony, but back then none of the video evidence was out there to contradict what they were saying.”

A close look at the now-retired police sergeant’s claims about Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol shows they don’t come close to matching video evidence from Capitol Police security cameras or bodycam video from Metropolitan Police Department officers.

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell stands alone inside the Capitol basement at 4:26 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, the precise time he claimed he performed CPR on Rosanne Boyland. Metropolitan Police Department

Gonell is the second former Capitol Police officer to make claims about assisting a dying woman — Rosanne Marie Boyland, 34 — after she collapsed outside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel and lay unconscious for more than five minutes before being pulled inside the Capitol.

The public testimony and published biography of former Capitol Police Officer Dunn also claimed that he assisted Boyland, but his accounts are also at complete odds with recently uncovered video evidence.

For more than 16 months, Dunn has been embroiled in a scandal over seemingly perjured testimony he gave in the first Jan. 6 Oath Keepers trial in October 2022. Those alleged lies were laid bare in a three-part BlazeTV video series, “A Day in the Life of Harry Dunn.”

Thus far neither Dunn nor former USCP Special Agent David Lazarus have faced consequences for apparently lying under oath about the Oath Keepers in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Long list of lies

Capitol Police security video and MPD bodycam video contradict the stories told by Gonell and Dunn on many points, a detailed review by Blaze News found. Their stories also contradict each other on several key points, the review found.

Gonell’s book, “American Shield,” was published by Counterpoint Press on Nov. 7, 2023. Dunn’s profanity-laced memoir, “Standing My Ground,” was released by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group on Oct. 23, 2023. Both books have been prominently featured on each publisher’s website. Neither publisher responded to Blaze News' questions about the veracity of the officers’ claims.

Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker approached Dunn’s publisher several weeks in advance of the release of “Standing My Ground” to point out the errors and potentially perjured descriptions from Jan. 6. He did not receive a reply.

'They lied to Congress under sworn testimony.'

In his sworn testimony before the Jan. 6 Select Committee on July 27, 2022, Gonell said he performed CPR on Boyland after her lifeless body was brought inside the Capitol. He claimed this happened before 4:30 p.m.

Video evidence tells a different story.

“It was not until 4:26 p.m., after giving CPR to one of the rioters who breached the Capitol in an effort to save her life, that I finally had a chance to let my own family know that I was alive,” Gonell said during a televised committee hearing.

At 4:26 p.m., however, Boyland lay unconscious and ignored just outside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel as police aggressively pushed protesters on top of each other. Pepper spray rained down like a spring thunderstorm.

Two men — Justin Winchell and Kim Sorgente — pleaded for Boyland’s life, accurately describing the stakes as life or death. Their desperate entreaties — memorialized on bodycam video — are truly haunting.

Kim Sorgente, 54, of Pleasanton, Calif., begs police to help unconscious Rosanne Boyland at the mouth of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021. “Get her up, please! Save her life! Save her life, please!” Sorgente begged police. Metropolitan Police Department

“Someone’s being crushed!” Sorgente cried out. “Get her up, please! Save her life! Save her life, please!”

Winchell, panic setting in, shouted, “Please get her up! She’s gonna die! She’s gonna die! She’s gonna die!”

Just after Tennessee sheriff’s deputy Ronald Colton McAbee tried to alert officers that Boyland needed immediate medical aid, MPD Officer Lila Morris stepped to the front line armed with a craggy, hardened wooden walking stick.

According to video, even before Morris stepped farther to the front and used the stick to assault the lifeless Boyland, McAbee pointed to Morris and shouted, “Quit f**king trying to kill that girl!”

Morris was harassed by a rioter in the second row of the crowd who used a long pole to poke at her. She lifted the walking stick over her head with two hands and swung downward. She struck protester Luke Coffee of Dallas near the left elbow as he urged officers to “stop!” Video reviewed by Blaze Media shows Morris swung at Coffee a second time but missed.

Tennessee sheriff’s deputy Colt McAbee points out the medical plight of Rosanne Boyland, telling police, “Quit f**king trying to kill that girl!” (Metropolitan Police Department)

Morris then did something that shocks the conscience even four years later. She apparently turned her overhead swings on the lifeless Boyland on the ground. She struck Boyland in the head, face, and ribs, video showed. A hyperventilating Morris was then dragged back into the Capitol by other officers.

The beating by Officer Morris left Boyland with visible injuries to her forehead, right eye, and nose, video showed. Boyland also suffered a deep bruise to her left shoulder. Yet none of these injuries was documented by paramedics, the emergency-room care team, or the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The shock of the beating registered on Winchell’s face as he watched from inches away at 4:27:54 p.m.

Boyland most certainly needed a hero at 4:26 p.m. It was not Sgt. Gonell. At that precise minute, he stood by himself in a Capitol basement hallway holding a small, round riot shield, bodycam video showed.

Despite desperate cries from protesters at the police line after Boyland collapsed, not a single officer moved to help her as she lay at the tunnel mouth. She had been shot in the chest with a pepper ball and subsequently crushed under a pile of people scrambling to escape the tunnel.

At 4:28 p.m., bystanders pulled Boyland away from the tunnel mouth and placed her on a nearby concrete step, where they began CPR.

Metropolitan Police Department Officer Lila Morris strikes an unconscious Rosanne Boyland with a walking stick at 4:28 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. Inset: Boyland’s friend Justin Winchell reacts. Metropolitan Police Department

Open-source videos posted online and exclusive video footage obtained by Blaze Media show that CPR was being administered by an unidentified man wearing a camo-pattern hoodie. Deputy McAbee searched for a femoral pulse, then grabbed a medical backpack sitting nearby and looked inside for a mask with which to administer rescue breaths.

After a short time, the bystanders carried Boyland back up the steps and set her at the police line. McAbee knelt down and took over CPR compressions but was shortly pulled away by a protester wearing a gas mask. McAbee struggled to his feet, pointed into the tunnel, and shouted, “Get a medic!”

At 4:31 p.m. — 11 minutes after gas was released in the tunnel — police grabbed Boyland by the feet and dragged her unceremoniously through the tunnel into the Capitol basement, video showed. An officer lost his balance and fell on top of Boyland before she had cleared the second set of doors leading into the basement, video showed.

According to the body camera of MPD Officer Michael Dowling, an unidentified MPD officer began CPR on Boyland just seconds before 4:32 p.m.

Wearing anti-riot hard gear, Gonell tried to assist MPD Officer Sarah Beaver in applying the shock pads of an automated external defibrillator at 4:33 p.m., Beaver’s body camera showed. Gonell appeared to open the wrong side of the AED case, and Beaver removed the backup shock pads, which were not connected to power.

The dramatic events that Gonell described simply didn’t happen.

While Gonell stuck an adhesive shock pad to Boyland’s chest, Beaver fumbled with the power tray before snapping off a piece on the back. In frustration, she said, “I don’t know how to do it,” according to her own bodycam video.

Another police officer reached out, flipped over the AED unit, and opened the correct side, exposing the shock pads that were connected to the power supply. That officer removed the pads that Gonell had applied and affixed the correct ones, video showed.

The officer twice motioned for Beaver to stop as she repeatedly pressed the defibrillator’s shock button. “Check electrode tray connection,” a computerized voice intoned from the unit.

Metropolitan Police Department Officer Sarah Beaver and Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell (top) pull apart an automated defibrillator next to an unconscious Rosanne Boyland on Jan. 6, 2021. Metropolitan Police Department

A second AED kit was set down on the floor next to Boyland as CPR continued. Gonell applied a shock pad to Boyland’s side, while another officer applied one to her chest.

The AED unit gave a warning not to touch Boyland while it evaluated her heart rhythm. “No shock advised,” the voice from the unit said. “Provide chest compressions and rescue breaths.”

That is the closest Gonell came to “administering CPR” on Boyland on Jan. 6.

Gonell’s detailed account of what took place once Boyland was dragged into the Capitol contradicts bodycam video and CCTV security video reviewed by Blaze Media.

No fireworks, smoke, lasers, or flagpoles

The dramatic events that Gonell described simply didn’t happen.

“An officer did compressions on her chest to resuscitate her as firecrackers landed nearby,” Gonell wrote in his book. “A guy in a MAGA hat attempted to blind us with eye-damaging lasers as we desperately tried to save the rioter.”

None of the video reviewed by Blaze Media shows firecrackers being set off in the building while Boyland was being given CPR. There is no video evidence that someone in a MAGA hat pointed a laser at officers who were tending to Boyland or the dozens of police who surrounded the basement entrance.

'The mob kept attacking even while we tended to their wounded.'

“‘Sarge, D.C. Fire can’t respond because the area isn’t secure,’ someone on my team rushed over to tell me,” Gonell wrote in his book. “They’re afraid to come without an escort.”

Video shows, however, that within four minutes of Boyland being brought inside the Capitol basement, two D.C. Fire and EMS officials — paramedic Lt. Timothy Bennett and Battalion Fire Chief Christopher Holmes — were on the scene, observing the rescue efforts and communicating with inbound paramedics via handheld radios.

Lt. Bennett and Chief Holmes remained near Boyland the entire time and then helped pull her on an improvised cart up to the Crypt level of the Capitol at 4:46 p.m., bodycam video showed.

At 4:44:31, Battalion Chief Holmes asked Gonell for help getting his paramedics to the right place in the Capitol. “Do you have somebody who could go and bring them here?” Holmes asked, according to bodycam video.

D.C. Battalion Fire Chief Christopher Holmes asks Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell to help get paramedics to the Capitol basement on Jan. 6, 2021. MPD Officer Anthony Walsh ended up handling the task. Metropolitan Police Department

Gonell hesitated before he gestured in apparent frustration. He turned to his left and grabbed USCP Officer Conner Rhodes to send him to meet the D.C. paramedics. Rhodes told Gonell he was already occupied. “I’m doing this,” Rhodes said, brushing past Gonell and returning to his spot on the floor performing chest compressions on Boyland.

“But you don’t have a mask,” Gonell protested.

Rhodes was one of the three key first responders providing chest compressions. He kept at it in a rotation for more than 15 minutes until D.C. Fire and EMS paramedics took over.

“We need to get the ambulance in here,” one of the fire officials shouted. Gonell then walked up the ramp, ostensibly to go meet the paramedics. After only a few strides, however, MPD Officer Anthony Walsh grabbed Gonell by the shoulder and said, “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them.”

'The silent heroes instead of the loud storytellers.'

Walsh then approached USCP Sgt. Nick Simons down the hallway and asked for help getting paramedics into the building. Simons immediately moved out to find them.

If Gonell had simply acted on Chief Holmes’ request when it was made, 45 seconds would have been saved, video showed.

In his book, Gonell described the arrival of three medics, whom he identified as FBI agents. The green fatigues and arm patches worn by the medics who worked on Boyland, however, identified them as from U.S. Park Police, part of the National Park Service.

“We administered CPR again. No pulse,” Gonell wrote. “A flagpole landed next to us, then a hammer. White smoke from fire extinguishers and pepper spray stained the air. The mob kept attacking even while we tended to their wounded.”

Medics pull Rosanne Boyland away after loading the unconscious woman onto an improvised cart in the Capitol basement on Jan. 6, 2021. Metropolitan Police Department

According to bodycam video from multiple MPD officers, no flagpoles or hammers landed near Boyland inside the Capitol. In fact, there were no protesters or rioters inside the basement at all. Nor was there white powder from fire extinguishers visible in the air during this time, CCTV video showed.

No officer in the crowd that surrounded Boyland was attacked.

“‘Move her. It’s not safe here!’ I screamed over the noise,” Gonell wrote in his book, although there is no video evidence showing he did such a thing.

Residual pepper gas in the air and pepper spray on the floor caused several officers to have coughing jags. The Park Police medics donned gas masks as the chemical irritants in the air nearly incapacitated several officers.

At 4:46 p.m., Boyland was loaded onto an improvised cart and pulled up a ramp and down a basement hallway. When the makeshift gurney first moved out, six men surrounded it, including Lt. Bennett, Chief Holmes, and Officer Rhodes.

More lies along the way

The gurney reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Crypt level at 4:47 p.m. Bodycam video showed that at this time, Gonell had taken the spot on the gurney to the right of Boyland’s head.

“Using my bruised left arm to lift her, I grabbed the handrails with my right hand to pull myself up,” Gonell wrote. “The cop next to me almost dropped her. A tall guy rushed down to replace him, saying, ‘I got you.’ I was pleased it was Harry Dunn, who I hadn’t seen since roll call early that morning.”

According to the bodycam video of MPD Officer James Weaver — who followed the gurney up the stairs — Dunn did not rush down the steps to help carry Boyland. No officers “almost dropped” Boyland. When the entourage reached the top of the stairs, the video showed, the same seven men carried the gurney as began the journey at the bottom of the steps.

Medics carry Rosanne Boyland up the stairs from the Capitol basement to the Crypt. Despite the claim by Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Officer Harry Dunn did not help carry the gurney. Metropolitan Police Department

“As we moved her up the stairs, dust and debris flew everywhere. My injured officers were throwing up, coughing, bleeding, and tending to their injuries,” Gonell wrote in his book.

Bodycam video showed, however, there was no dust or debris flying in the air, nor any vomiting officers, as Boyland was carried up the staircase.

Gonell described a conversation he claimed to have with Dunn on the way up the stairs.

“‘What happened up here?’ I asked Harry. At this moment, I’d still assumed the protesters had only stormed the Lower West Terrace where I was,” Gonell wrote. “I had no idea they’d infiltrated all the Capitol entrances.”

In his book, Dunn never claimed to carry Boyland up the stairs to the Crypt from the basement, but he did claim he helped carry her through the Crypt to a hallway outside the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

Dunn said that when he entered the Crypt, he saw extensive violence.

Despite claims by Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, there was no debris in the air as rescuers carried a dying Rosanne Boyland up the stairs to the Crypt on Jan. 6, 2021. Bodycam video shows injury to Boyland’s nose. Metropolitan Police Department

“It was filled with people fighting. We were pushing, shoving, grabbing rioters and getting them out of the building,” Dunn wrote. “We were shouting, ‘F**k you! Get out of here! Get the f**k out!’ In some cases, we were pushing people into a bathroom and holding them there to deal with later.”

Bodycam video obtained by Blaze Media tells a different story. Just before 4:47 p.m., the video showed, Dunn stood chatting with another Capitol Police officer. There were dozens of police officers in the vicinity, but no fighting or shouting. Boyland’s gurney had not yet emerged from the stairway.

'And now she’s dead. Dead for nothing!'

Bodycam video showed Dunn was in the crowd at the top of the stairs when Boyland’s gurney emerged, but he did not help carry her or even approach the gurney. He claimed he and three other rescuers carried Boyland, but that’s not what video showed.

“She was a big woman. She was dressed in ripped jeans and a blue hoodie. I grabbed what I could of her, but it was hard to get a grip,” Dunn wrote. “I still had my rifle on me, but I’m a pretty strong guy, so the four of us reconfigured our holds and kept going. We finally got her into a hallway and just outside the door of the office of Rep. Stenny [sic] Hoyer, then the House majority leader.”

Despite his claims, video shows Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn did not help lift Rosanne Boyland when D.C. paramedics arrived at 4:50 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. Metropolitan Police Department

Boyland was not wearing a hoodie the entire time she was in the Capitol. She lost her backpack and her hoodie and jeans were pulled off when officers dragged her into the Capitol. Her body was mostly bare from the waist up as officers did CPR and later when they moved her up to the Crypt. From the waist down, she wore a pair of red long johns.

Rescuers did not grab or carry Boyland in the manner described by Dunn. Bodycam video showed rescuers pulling her on the cart through the central Crypt. Dunn was not among them. He trailed behind the cart at a distance as the cart went down a long hallway toward the House Wing Door.

Just outside the door to the House majority leader’s office, rescuers met inbound paramedics from D.C. Fire and EMS. They transferred Boyland to an ambulance gurney, then continued chest compressions. Dunn was not among those helping Boyland. He stood across the hallway, watching, video showed.

'I found a loose driver’s license covered in muck.'

As first responders rolled Boyland away toward the House Wing Door, Gonell was no longer part of the crew surrounding her. This is where his limited role in Boyland’s transport ended. Dunn continued to saunter after the gurney from a distance but was never a part of rescue efforts.

Although he felt informed enough to comment on Boyland’s alleged medical care on Jan. 6, Dunn took things even farther, seemingly blaming Boyland for her own death.

“She promised them she would stand on the sideline and just offer visual support, but like so many people, she got caught up,” Dunn wrote in explaining Boyland’s fate. “And now she’s dead. Dead for nothing!”

There is no visual evidence to suggest Boyland did anything but observe on Jan. 6. She did not riot. She committed no vandalism. She didn’t shout at police. She ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, along with dozens of others caught up in a near-stampede out of the tunnel after gas was released into the enclosed space.

As Boyland’s gurney approached the House Wing Door, Gonell walked ahead a few strides, Capitol security video showed. Paramedics removed Boyland from the gurney and placed her on the floor, where CPR continued for another approximately 40 minutes, video showed.

Gonell stayed a few paces away from the rescue efforts. When an AED unit slid across the floor toward him, Gonell picked it up and threw it, sending it careening into the doors.

Rosanne Marie Boyland died on Jan. 6, 2021, after falling inside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. Two Capitol police officers have lied extensively about their alleged efforts to help her. Photos courtesy of Bret and Cheryl Boyland

The only other assistance Gonell provided was to hold an IV bag for one of the Park Police medics. He did that task for 11 minutes 36 seconds before handing the IV bag to another police officer at 5:12 p.m., security video showed.

At 5:29 p.m., Gonell held one end of the gurney while first responders lifted Boyland back onto the stretcher. At 5:31 p.m., paramedics wheeled Boyland back down the long hallway toward the center Crypt. Gonell stayed behind. Dunn was no longer in the area. At 5:32 p.m., CCTV showed, the stretcher wheeled past the Crypt south camera and turned east down a hallway to the Law Library.

The 13 rescue personnel who accompanied Boyland on this final leg of her Capitol journey did not include Sgt. Gonell or Officer Dunn.

Gonell claimed he returned to the Lower West Terrace Tunnel in an effort to retrieve Boyland’s ID card, “hoping to alert her family before they heard her fate on the news.

“On the ground, I saw something by a surgical mask,” Gonell wrote. “Under a scarf with a MAGA 2020 logo and a white Trump cowboy hat, I found a loose driver’s license covered in muck. I recognized the picture. She was a thirty-four-year-old woman from Georgia named Rosanne Boyland.”

Rosanne M. Boyland is wheeled to an ambulance from the Crypt level of the U.S. Capitol about 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. Many questions remain about Boyland’s death. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images

The problem with that description is that Boyland did not bring her Georgia driver’s license to the Capitol. She left it and her wallet in her vehicle. Those items were later retrieved by her parents. Gonell could not have fished her license out of the “muck” as he described in his book.

“Rosanne left her wallet with her driver’s license in the car on January 6, so we’ve had it at the house since we got the car back,” Bret Boyland told Blaze News.

'I don’t understand how anybody can live with theirself being dishonest.'

She also had a debit card from her mother and around $200 tucked in her brassiere. The card and a wad of cash are visible on MPD bodycam when Boyland was first set down inside the Capitol basement. None of those items was returned to the family.

Gonell expressed relief in his book that the National Guard showed up at the Lower West Terrace Tunnel at 5:30 p.m. to disperse the crowd using “overwhelming force and flashbangs.” However, the surging crowd of law enforcement that poured out of the tunnel firing incendiary munitions at protesters was not the D.C. National Guard but rather the Virginia State Police.

In their respective books, in court testimony, and in countless media interviews since Jan. 6, Gonell and Dunn spoke eloquently about the importance of telling the truth. Gonell opened his book with an admonition about honesty. Dunn spoke with emotion during a CNN interview.

“I don’t understand how anybody can live with theirself being dishonest,” Dunn said. “You can apologize to people, you can apologize to everybody in this world. You apologize to yourself knowing that you’re full of crap?”

Bret Boyland said he is thankful for those who actually helped his daughter on Jan. 6, including Deputy McAbee, Officer Rhodes, Luke Coffee, Battalion Fire Chief Holmes, Lt. Bennett, the U.S. Park Police, Metropolitan Police, and many nameless strangers who stepped into the breach.

“I do praise all the officers and rescue personnel that were trying to revive Rosanne,” Bret Boyland said. “Those are the heroes, the ones who were doing their jobs that day and not trying to make money off it later — the silent heroes instead of the loud storytellers.”

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