4 Years Later: Alex Cameron Reflects On The Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

A personal look back on January 6, 2021.

It’s hard to compare this January 6 to the one that I experienced four years ago. On both January 6, 2021 and January 6, 2025, Congress ultimately carried out its constitutionally appointed task: certification of the electoral vote count.

But four years ago, that happened only after a large mob of angry and violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, assaulting and injuring scores of police officers and breaching the sanctity of the People’s House.

Thousands of others working at the Capitol complex that day, like myself, are still in disbelief that it happened and will never forget it.

For me, the day started with a walk to the Ellipse to shoot some video and get some interviews with Trump supporters who were going to the so-called Stop the Steal rally, at which Trump spoke and encouraged people to march to the Capitol.

In talking to a dozen or so people, I noticed very clearly the righteous anger many were feeling. It was eye-opening, but I certainly didn’t leave there with a sense that this group was capable of the sort of violence that unfolded a short time later.

I walked to the Capitol (the same route the marchers took after the rally), conducted an interview with Senator Jim Inhofe (we talked about the upcoming certification—he felt it was Congress’s constitutional duty to certify the vote and did not intend to protest any of the votes), and then set up shop in my usual spot in the 3rd-floor rotunda of the Cannon House Office building. I was beginning to go through the video and start writing what I thought was going to be a story about a contentious, but successful vote certification.

Many Republicans, in a nod to Trump’s unproven and false contention that the election had been riddled with widespread fraud, said they planned to protest the vote counts in certain swing states.

At about 1:20 p.m., U.S. Capitol police officers walked through the rotunda and told all the media that we needed to move to the basement and that the building was on lockdown. They didn’t say why but there was a general assumption among reporters that it was due to a bomb threat. I grabbed my things and went down the three flights of stairs to the basement where we were then hustled through a tunnel to the basement of neighboring Longworth House Office building.

I camped out in the cafeteria, waiting for specifics as to what was going on but assuming police would soon issue an ‘all clear’ and I’d be able to get back upstairs to work. 

There are no windows in the basement and so our only ‘window’ on what was going on was through our cell phones and the TV monitors which were tuned to CNN. I was half paying attention to the TV coverage, which was showing the delay in the certification and the growing crowd outside the Capitol. 

I turned my attention away from the monitors and soon started getting text messages from family and co-workers asking if I was okay. At first, I wasn’t sure what their concern was—and then I looked up again at the TV. I will never forget the gut-wrenching shock I felt when I saw those first images of rioters walking through the Capitol.

It took a moment for this reality to register with all of us watching. What would happen next? Would they soon force their way through the underground tunnels into the office buildings where I was? Members were seen carrying gas masks! I spoke with a Capitol police officer who tried to assure me this would be under control soon. It wasn’t.

The next few hours are a blur — between answering texts and phone calls from very worried family members to trying to get information and do live reports for News 9 and News On 6, it was suddenly after 7:00 p.m. The Capitol had been cleared of rioters, but the damage was done.

One person had been shot and killed, and the death toll would grow. Senators and Representatives — Democrats and Republicans — were shaken, angry, and determined not to allow this attack to keep them from carrying out their constitutional duty to certify the election. 

The lockdown was lifted, as best I can recall, around 7:20 p.m. I wasn’t done reporting but I was going home to my family and would file my 10 p.m. story from the living room.

To get to my car, parked at my office, I had to walk the mile and a half from the Capitol because a curfew put in place during the riot shut down the Metro.

The walk, in which I essentially retraced my steps — just the other direction  — from the morning, couldn’t have been more different.

There were police cruisers at every intersection, but no traffic and no pedestrians. It was a surreal end to one of the most surreal news events I’ve ever covered.