Pounding on doors. “OPEN THE DOOR. OPEN THE DOOR.”

“Break it down. Break it down.”

Protestor to the Capitol Police: “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Then, suddenly, breaking glass and protestors smashing through a door.

“There’s a gun! He’s got a gun.”

A shot is fired and a woman falls. (This is Ashli Babbit, the thirty-five-year-old air force veteran, the first person killed in the attack.)

“She’s done. She’s dead. Her eyes. She’s dead, bro.”

Protestor to one of the Capitol policemen: “You all gonna shoot everybody?”

“I saw the light go out in her eyes.”

Another voice: “Infowars.com. I need the footage. It’s going out to the world.”

“I can’t believe I saw somebody die.”

Not long after 1 p.m., Mo Brooks was on the House floor trying to figure out which electoral challenges on the House side would also be joined by at least one senator, quite an unsettled state at the final hour. The number of objections dictated how many speeches would be given by House members, and Brooks was one of the people divvying out those sought-after assignments.

Sometime after 1:30, after the House and Senate had divided to hear debate in their respective chambers on the Arizona challenge, Brooks noticed Nancy Pelosi leave the Speaker’s desk. Then there was a brief interruption. Paul Gosar, the Dead-Ender congressman from Arizona, was speaking. And then there was another interruption. Notable but not that unusual. Gosar returned to his speech. But then there was an announcement that protestors had entered the Capitol. Brooks found this a little more unusual, but it was hardly the first time protestors had disrupted Capitol proceedings. Brooks didn’t pay a lot of attention. But not long after, there was another announcement, and members were asked to take the gas masks sealed in black Velcro bags from under their seats. And that was unusual, Brooks noted. There might be tear gas. On the other hand, Brooks also noted, they weren’t being asked to put the gas masks on—or even take them out of their Velcro bags. And then, in short order, they were told they needed to vacate the House floor—one half led out one door, the other half out another door. At about this moment, Brooks heard a fist pounding on a door. There might have been shouting. But as they were led to where they would wait out the disruption, Brooks didn’t see any protestors, only Capitol police. He wasn’t afraid, just curious.

He would recall, in what would become part of a later Republican reinterpretation of events: “I never felt any sense of danger that whole day.”