Ocasio-Cortez said she was sharing her story because it is important for survivors of trauma to recount their experiences.
WASHINGTON – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described her experience during the Jan.6 Capitol riot as traumatic in an at-times emotional Instagram Live on Monday night, saying it “almost felt like a zombie movie or something.” She detailed an encounter with a Capitol Police officer whom she initially feared was a rioter. Near the time the mob breached the U.S. Capitol, she said, someone began banging on the doors of her office. Fearing that rioters had entered the building, she hid inside a bathroom within her inner office. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she heard a man yelling, “‘Where is she?’ And I just thought to myself, ‘They got inside.’” She said she saw a man wearing a black beanie through the door hinge and, as he continued to yell for her, “I thought I was going to die.” “This is the moment where I thought, ‘Everything is over,’” she said. Ocasio-Cortez and her legislative director realized the man was actually a Capitol Police officer, but he didn’t identify himself as such and “was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility,” she said. Unsettled, Ocasio-Cortez said, her legislative director later remarked, “I didn’t know if he was here to help us or hurt us, either.
