Michael Fanone, a former D.C. police officer who was violently assaulted during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, criticized former president Donald Trump on Tuesday outside the courthouse where Trump is on trial in a hush money case. Hours later, he said, his mother was “swatted” at her Virginia home.
Fanone said that his 75-year-old mother, in her nightgown, opened the door to officers at her home in Fairfax County. “She was scared,” Fanone told The Washington Post in an interview Thursday morning.
A fake note purporting to be from Fanone had been emailed to a number of people, claiming the writer of the note had killed his mother and planned to go to the recipient’s school to shoot others. It provided the home address of Fanone’s mother. NBC News first reported the incident.
Fanone said the swatting — a form of online harassment involving the reporting of a fake crime to draw an emergency law enforcement response to target a victim — was frightening.
Advertisem*nt
Skip to end of carousel
Jan. 6 report takeaways
The Jan. 6 committee released its final report in 2022, marking the culmination of an 18-month investigation into the violent insurrection. Read The Post’s analysis about the committee’s new findings and conclusions.
Criminal referrals
The committee made four criminal referrals against Donald Trump: inciting or assisting an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to make a false statement. Here’s what the criminal referrals mean.
What we learned
The first 160 pages of the report released Monday contained some new details, including more evidence that Trump resist urging peace on Jan. 6 (and before), information on hundreds of weapons seized, and more. Here’s what we’ve learned from the Jan. 6 committee report so far.
1/3
End of carousel
The swatting email “is sending law enforcement officers into a situation where they are acting under the assumption there is an active shooter in progress,” Fanone said. “It’s inherently dangerous. All it takes is one misinterpretation of someone’s actions — my mother, in this case — and it could go catastrophically wrong.”
Fanone, who has been subject to threats since he became the face of the law enforcement response to the attack on the Capitol and called out lawmakers who played down the attack, said the majority of his interactions with the public are now negative. “My mere presence puts people in an absolute rage,” he said.
He attributed the swatting incident to anger over his criticism of Trump and what happened on Jan. 6. He said that his mother described the police response as aggressive and that it appeared to her that the officers were wearing tactical gear.
Advertisem*nt
The Fairfax County Police Department said in a statement that it was alerted to a suspicious email by the Montgomery County Police Department. Officers responded to a block in Alexandria around 7:40 p.m.
Authorities confirmed the call was to Fanone’s mother’s home and said they flagged the call as likely to be false before they responded. Their description of how the call was handled differed from Fanone’s.
“Our patrol officers wearing their everyday patrol uniforms walked up to the home, knocked on the door and kindly spoke to the resident … who confirmed she was safe,” said Brian Reilly, Fairfax County’s executive assistant police chief. He said Fanone’s mother invited the officers inside. No arrest has been made.
The email, which was reviewed by The Post, identifies the author as Fanone and says, “I have killed my … mom.” The person then threatens to go shoot people at a school.
Advertisem*nt
Fanone said the officers asked his mother where her son was. Fanone said his mother showed the officers pictures of him and told them of his law enforcement background.
Fanone said that on Wednesday someone sent an unsolicited pizza to his mother’s home.
Earlier on Tuesday, Fanone had joined a campaign event for President Biden outside of the New York courthouse where attorneys presented their closing arguments in the case against Trump over charges he falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
Fanone, who said he voted for Trump in 2016, said that the former president would govern as an “authoritarian who answers to and serves only himself.” He said supporters of Trump who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 “were fueled by Trump’s lies and the lies of his surrogates, lies that the 2020 election was stolen.”
Advertisem*nt
He added: “Those same lies have been spewed by Donald Trump and his surrogates about what happened to me and so many other police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. That day I was brutally assaulted.”
During the insurrection at the Capitol, Fanone and another officer were attacked by rioters, who struck them with metal pipes and stun guns. Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and drifted in and out of consciousness, and said he heard attackers shouting to “Kill him with his own gun,” The Post reported days after the insurrection.
He resigned from the force 11 months later.
