´óÏó´«Ã½

A former US Capitol Police officer who faced racial slurs as he fought off a mob during the 6 January attack has announced he is running for Congress.

Harry Dunn gained fame for his emotional testimony at the first public hearing of the committee that investigated the 2021 attack.

Mr Dunn says he is "running as the forces that spurred that violent attack are still at work".

He enters the race as a Democrat from Maryland.

Mr Dunn testified multiple times before the House 6 January committee about what he experienced when supporters of Donald Trump broke into the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Telling rioters that Joe Biden won the election, "prompted a torrent of racial epithets" he testified. "One woman in a pink Maga [Make America Great Again] shirt yelled, 'You hear that, guys, this [expletive] voted for Joe Biden!"

"No-one had ever - ever - called me a [expletive] while wearing the uniform of a Capitol police officer."

In his campaign announcement video Mr Dunn walks through what is supposed to be the halls of Congress - in a recreation video of 6 January.

"I put country above self," he says in the video. "The problem is - a lot of [lawmakers] didn't. Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump."

"They voted to acquit him. And they denied the violence and trauma that led to the death of some of my fellow officers."

"We are one election away from the extinction of democracy as we know it," Mr Dunn told MSNBC.

He added that he wants "to push back against the people in Congress right now that I spent the last 15 years of my life protecting" to serve as their equal.

Mr Dunn, who resigned from the police force in December 2023, will enter a crowded Democratic primary field before making it to the general election ballot. The third Congressional district in Maryland, just south of Baltimore, typically votes Democrat.

He was one of 14 to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Joe Biden for his actions protecting the Capitol on 6 January.

The 15-year-veteran of the Capitol Police force also released a book in 2023, titled Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th.

Democrat Harry Reid, who served in Congress for decades, was also a former Capitol Police officer before being elected to Congress.