Before he spoke on a panel after a Virginia Film Festival documentary screening, Metropolitan Police Department officer Danny Hodges learned that a man who attacked him at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
The sentencing “discourages people who have fantasies about doing this sort of thing again,” Hodges told the audience after a showing of “Defenders of Democracy: The Thin Blue Line,” a University of Virginia Center for Politics-sponsored documentary. “But I’m still a member of the Metropolitan Police Department. The potential of another event like that … I’m hoping we take measures to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The documentary premiered just days before the presidential election. The product of a partnership between the Center for Politics and the production company 10th Collective, it explores what led to the attacks on the Capitol.
“Defenders of Democracy” shows the struggles of law enforcement officers during the Jan. 6 uprising, and the efforts of the spouses of fallen officers in its aftermath to ensure accountability, advocate for better public policy and achieve mental health provisions for law enforcement officers. Approximately 140 police officers were injured in the riot, and four died in the days following. Four rioters also died as a result of the attack.
From left to right, Kara Elyse Henderson of Mindful Media Productions, director Jumoke Davis, Setmayer, Smith, Gonell and Hodges are keeping the officers’ stories alive. (Photo by Clara Castle, University Communications)
The film, directed by Jumoke Davis, uses new interviews with officers and their families, security camera footage, cell phone recordings and news clips to shed light on the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol.
Many members of the mob have been arrested and sentenced, but the documentary’s subjects who spoke on the panel, moderated by Center for Politics Scholar Tara Setmayer, said the fight for justice is ongoing.
Erin Smith was widowed after her husband, Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith, was one of several officers who died by suicide in the days following the attack. Smith has fought for her husband’s death to be considered a line-of-duty death.
“He has received a line-of-duty designation from MPD. He’s received it from the federal government, but the entities that actually recognize the line-of-duty death do not recognize him,” Smith said.
