Washington DC Police Department officer Michael Fanone has told CNN in a chilling interview that rioters at last week's Capitol siege trying to take his gun, saying they were going to "kill him with his own gun".
"You know trying to fight, as best I could…I remember guys were stripping me of my gear, they were pulling my badge off my chest, they ripped my radio off my chest," he told the network.
"Then some guy started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, you know, 'kill him with his own gun'."
Officer Fanone said at that point it was all about "self preservation".
"You know, how do I survive this situation. And I thought about, you know, using deadly force, I thought about shooting people, and then I just came to the conclusion that if I was to do that I might get a few, but I'm not going to take everybody, they'll probably take my gun away from me and that would definitely give them the justification that they were looking for to kill me, if they already hadn't made that up in their minds.
"So the other option was to try to appeal to somebody's humanity, and I just remember yelling out that I have kids, and it seemed to work."