Updated on: March 7, 2026 / 8:44 PM EST / CBS/AP
Visitors to the U.S. Capitol now have a visible marker of the Jan. 6, 2021, siege and a reminder of the officers who fought and were injured that day. Workers quietly installed a plaque steps from the Capitol’s West Front — near where the heaviest fighting occurred — three years after a 2022 law required it.
The plaque was bolted to a hallway wall on the Senate side after that chamber unanimously voted in January to install it. House Speaker Mike Johnson had delayed putting it up. The plaque reads, in part: “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.”
The Washington Post first reported the installation; a reporter said she saw two employees working a nightshift and posted that she observed them bolting the plaque to the wall about 4 a.m. EST Saturday. It is the first official marker of the violent day at the Capitol. More than 150 officers were injured, and five police officers who served at the Capitol died in the days and weeks afterward.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., led the recent effort to install the plaque after he commemorated the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Senate floor and described hearing people break into the building. “We owe them eternal gratitude, and this nation is stronger because of them,” he said of the officers who confronted thousands of supporters of then-President Trump and helped push them out.
The mob echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election after he was defeated by Joe Biden. The crowd halted the congressional certification of Biden’s victory for several hours, sent lawmakers running, and vandalized the building before police regained control. Trump has called Jan. 6 a “day of love,” deflected blame onto Democrats and police, and many Republicans have downplayed the violence. After his second inauguration, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged or convicted in the attack, including those convicted of assaulting officers and seditious conspiracy.
Congress’s 2022 law specified an honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred” and gave a one-year deadline for installation, but the plaque was never put up. Democrats, angry about the missing plaque, installed replicas outside their offices and repeatedly pressed GOP leaders to erect it or explain why it was absent.
After more than a year of inaction and a lawsuit from two officers who fought at the Capitol, Johnson’s office issued a statement on Jan. 5 saying the statute authorizing the plaque was “not implementable” and that proposed alternatives “do not comply.” Tillis then filed a resolution on the Senate floor and, with no objections from other senators, placed the plaque on the Senate side.
One plaintiff in the lawsuit, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, said the lawsuit will continue. Hodges, who was crushed and beaten by rioters near the central west front doors — steps from where the plaque now sits — called the overnight installation a “fine stopgap” but said it does not fully comply with the law. The statute said the plaque should be placed “on” the west front of the Capitol and that officers’ names should be listed on the plaque itself. Instead, the installed plaque is on a nearby hallway wall and includes a sign with a QR code linking to a 45-page document listing thousands of officers who responded that day.
Hodges said a judicial ruling would help secure the memorial against future tampering and that “our lawsuit persists.” He and former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn allege in the lawsuit that Congress encouraged a “rewriting of history” by not following the statute and installing the plaque as written. The lawsuit argues that the failure to comply suggests officers are not worthy of recognition.
The Justice Department has sought to dismiss the case. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others argued that Congress “already has publicly recognized the service of law enforcement personnel” by approving the plaque and that displaying it would not alleviate the personal problems officers claim to face from their work.
Hodges, Dunn and other officers who have spoken about their experiences have faced criticism and threats from Trump supporters who say the officers are lying; some officers report ongoing struggles. The lawsuit states that “both men live with psychic injuries from that day, compounded by their government’s refusal to recognize their service.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the top Democrat on the spending committee that oversees the legislative branch, said “our Capitol Police deserve more” and pledged to continue pressing Speaker Johnson. Espaillat also criticized the timing and manner of the installation, noting it was done early in the morning with “no ceremony, no real recognition.”
Capitol tour guides photographed the plaque on Saturday. The plaque’s placement marks the first formal, on-site acknowledgment at the Capitol of the violence and the officers who responded on Jan. 6, though legal and political disputes over compliance with the law and proper recognition continue.