Ex-DC officer injured during Jan. 6 riot endorses Fetterman 

Former Washington, D.C., police officer Michael Fanone, who was badly injured during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at U.S. Capitol, has endorsed Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman over Republican candidate Mehmet Oz just a day before Tuesday’s midterm election. 

“Mehmet Oz is no ordinary Republican. He has aligned himself with Donald Trump, the first president in U.S. history to send his supporters to attack their fellow Americans — police officers — in an attempt to subvert democracy,” Fanone said in an ad for Fetterman. 

Fanone said the thousands of rioters who descended on the Capitol that day were “fueled by the lies peddled by Donald Trump and his allies and directed by the former president himself to take the fight to the Capitol.” 

“Oz has filled his campaign ranks with election deniers and even participants in the Jan. 6 attack on our Capitol. Oz is not the independent voice he claims to be. He is a mouthpiece for Donald Trump and his hate-filled, violent rhetoric,” Fanone said. 

A Tennessee man was sentenced last month to more than seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty to assaulting Fanone during the Jan. 6 riot.

Fanone, who said in the ad he and other police officers “self-deployed after heeding the distress calls from our colleagues” on Jan. 6, entered the national spotlight when he testified before the House select committee investigating the riot.

As the race between Oz and Fetterman comes to a close, polls in the week ahead of the midterms indicate the two candidates are neck and neck, with some results showing the Democrat in the lead and others suggesting the Republican is pulling ahead. 

Fetterman on Monday forecast that Oz may lead in the early stages of vote counting, before mail-in and early votes are added to the tally. 

“I’m honored to have the support of Officer Fanone, a true American hero who (unlike Oz) believes in supporting democracy,” Fetterman wrote on Twitter, sharing the ad.