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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Approaching the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol<\/a>, the official plaque honoring the police<\/a> who defended democracy that day is nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren’t publicly known, though it\u2019s believed to be in storage.<\/p>\n House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>, a Louisiana Republican, has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration\u2019s Department of Justice<\/a> is seeking to dismiss a police officers’ lawsuit<\/a> asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol<\/a>, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.<\/p>\n Determined to preserve the nation’s history, some 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have taken it upon themselves to memorialize the moment. For months, they’ve mounted poster board-style replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances.<\/p>\n \u201cOn behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021,\u201d reads the faux bronze stand-in for the real thing. \u201cTheir heroism will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n In Washington, a capital city lined with monuments to the nation\u2019s history, the plaque was intended to become a simple but permanent marker, situated near the Capitol\u2019s west front, where some of the most violent fighting<\/a> took place as rioters breached the building<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in its absence, the missing plaque makes way for something else entirely \u2014 a culture of forgetting. <\/p>\n Visitors can pass through the Capitol without any formal reminder of what happened that day, when a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters<\/a> stormed the building trying to overturn the Republican’s 2020 reelection defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. With memory left unchecked, it allows new narratives to swirl and revised histories to take hold.<\/p>\n Five years ago, the jarring scene watched the world over was declared an \u201cinsurrection\u201d<\/a> by the then-GOP leader of the Senate, while the House GOP leader at the time called it his \u201csaddest day\u201d in Congress. But those condemnations have faded<\/a>. <\/p>\n Trump calls it a \u201cday of love.\u201d<\/a> And Johnson, who was among those lawmakers challenging the 2020 election results, is now the House speaker.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question of January 6 remains \u2013 democracy was on the guillotine \u2014 how important is that event in the overall sweep of 21st century U.S. history,\u201d said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and noted scholar.<\/p>\n \u201cWill January 6 be seen as the seminal moment when democracy was in peril?\u201d he asked. Or will it be remembered as \u201ckind of a weird one-off?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not as much consensus on that as one would have thought on the fifth anniversary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At least five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt<\/a>, who was fatally shot by police while trying to climb through a window toward the House chamber. More than 140 law enforcement officers were wounded, some gravely, and several died later, some by suicide.<\/p>\n All told, some 1,500 people were charged in the Capitol attack, among the largest federal prosecutions in the nation\u2019s history. When Trump returned to power in January 2025, he pardoned all of them<\/a> within hours of taking office.<\/p>\n Unlike the twin light beams that commemorated the Sept. 11, 2001, attack or the stand-alone chairs at the Oklahoma City bombing site memorial, the failure to recognize Jan. 6 has left a gap not only in memory but in helping to stitch the country back together.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why you put up a plaque,\u201d said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa. \u201cYou respect the memory and the service of the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n The speaker\u2019s office over the years has suggested it was working on installing the plaque, but it declined to respond to a request for further comment. <\/p>\n Lawmakers approved the plaque in March 2022 as part of a broader government funding package. The resolution said the U.S. “owes its deepest gratitude to those officers,\u201d and it set out instructions for an honorific plaque listing the names of officers \u201cwho responded to the violence that occurred.\u201d It gave a one-year deadline for installation at the Capitol.<\/p>\n This summer, two officers who fought the mob that day sued over the delay.<\/p>\n “By refusing to follow the law and honor officers as it is required to do, Congress encourages this rewriting of history,” said the claim<\/a> by officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges<\/a>. \u201cIt suggests that the officers are not worthy of being recognized, because Congress refuses to recognize them.\u201d<\/p>\n