Emelia's Thing: Trauma and resilience in the wake of Jan. 6

A young police officer unexpectedly finds herself back in New Hampshire, and she's not the same person she was when she left. Something happened to her – to all of us. But for Officer Emelia Campbell, this thing still lives in her brain and her body.

Lauren Chooljian of NHPR's team brings you Emelia's story of survival and resilience in the wake of Jan. 6, 2021.

Listen to "Emelia's Thing" by clicking the play button above or

(sound of a car driving on a road)

[Emelia Campbell, driving police cruiser] These are my moo cow friends. I say hi to 'em every day.

[Lauren Chooljian] Aww...

I'm sitting in the front seat of officer Emelia Campbell's police cruiser. We're on a tour of her typical patrol route in Northumberland, New Hampshire.

She showed me her preferred speed trap spots. The scene of a hit and run from last week.

But this, a farm, this is the hot spot. Suddenly, two horses jump up on their hind legs and start kinda swatting at each other.

[Emelia] Oh! Hey-ho... Break it up, guys. Don't make me come over there! (cruiser goes over a bump)

Life as a cop in a rural town can be... slow. Emelia's got a good sense of humor about it, but this job can also drive her a little nuts. She says 90% of the calls they get in Northumberland are what Emelia describes as non-police matters.

Case in point: A call comes in from police dispatch. Emelia looks down at a computer screen that sits between us and starts reading. (beeping in the cruiser)

[Emelia] Yeah... So, something like we have no water and we're on the town water system.

Basically, someone's water isn't working, so... they called the police to fix it?

So here's 28-year-old Officer Campbell, dressed in your typical police uniform – bullet proof vest, gun in a holster and her brown hair pulled back into a bun.

She puts her hands up like she's exasperated and mouths, "What do you want me to do about that?"

[Emelia] What do you want me to do about that? I can't just wave a magic wand and be like, "Let there be water." I was like, you might want to call the water department. Ugh, just give me one second...

(music in)

Now, before you start thinking that Emelia is just gonna shrug this woman off, she picks up her phone.

I will, actually.

[Emelia] Hi, this is Officer Campbell with Northumberland PD. How are you... (fades down)

Emelia Campbell a very nice person. She can be crass, but also very sweet. She may grumble. She will definitely joke – but she is truly devoted to protecting and serving the people of Northumberland and Groveton, New Hampshire. So, consider the case of why isn't this woman's water on... officially open.

(music fades out)

[Emelia] Some days are better than others. I mean, there's, there's times I just deal with these calls every day, and I'm just like, why am I still in this, you know? Um, because it's, it's really not what I want to be doing. Um... I want to save lives, and I want to protect people. There's days up here where I'm just like, I ain't, I ain't doing that. You know, I feel like I'm keeping two neighbors from just lettin' 'em yell at each other for 30 minutes.

[Emelia] Pays my bills. I like my chief... and I still have a lot that I need to work on emotionally.

A lot she needs to work on emotionally. This question I'm asking Emelia is kind of a loaded one.

Emelia is here because of January 6th. Emelia was a Capitol Police Officer.

Nearly four years later, January 6 still lives in her brain and in her body. Emelia's all the way up here with the horses and cows in Northumberland because she's trying to heal.

[Emelia] Civil dispute calls, you know, just people not getting along with each other, neighbors not getting along with each other...

(music fades in)

...and just that confrontation of them fighting and yelling at each other that just brings...

(brief sound of crowd yelling)

...the flashbacks of...

(brief crowd yelling)

...this guy yelling at me...

(man yelling: "We want those f**king traitors!")

... and that, just kind of those emotions and that confrontation of people and you know, those heated arguments, are what kind of bring back those images for me.

(music post)

The next presidential election is just days away, and the results will be certified again on January 6th, 2025. Who knows what might happen this time?

This country can't even agree on what happened last time: Was it a "day of love" as former President Donald Trump calls it? Or was it an attack on our democracy?

I found a poll from earlier this year that said 43% of the people surveyed feel that too much is being made of January 6th. It's time to move on from it, they said.

Move on? What a luxury that would be for people like Emelia Campbell.

People died that day. Many, many more were injured. And there's a silent impact of this day that we'll never get an accounting for.

At least five police officers who responded to the attack on the Capitol died by suicide.

It's impossible to know how many people on the Hill that day now navigate life with PTSD, like Emelia does.

(theme music in)

Emelia has never spoken publicly about January 6th. But lately, she's changed her mind. She's decided she wants you to know what happened, how it's not a political thing for her. It's a scar. Something that lives inside her, every single day. And despite it all, she's survived.

(theme music up and out)

To really understand Emelia's experience of January 6th and life afterward, you have to know that up until the moment the riot began, this girl was fully thriving.

[Emelia]: It was, ironically – I think for everyone else that was miserable in 2020 – it was my favorite year.

Her favorite year. 2020. Not many people she realizes would say that. But even amidst a pandemic, Emelia was living her dream life.

She grew up mostly in Loudon, New Hampshire – a place she was dying to move away from.

[Emelia] All we had was cow tipping and NASCAR in Loudon, and I didn't really partake in either of 'em. So, it was a lot. (laughs) But uh...

In high school, Emelia set two big goals for herself: I want to live in Washington, D.C. and I want to work in law enforcement.

By 2020, Emelia, at 24 years old, had checked both those boxes. She was a Capitol Police officer – her first job out of college. She had recently moved in with her boyfriend, Rob, also a Capitol Police officer. And she was happy. Settled.

Emelia's assignment was the First Responders Unit or FRU. It was her job to protect the outside of the Capitol building.

This seems like a good time for me to tell you Emelia hates politics. She has absolutely no interest in it. Never has. Some of her colleagues loved the access to congressmen and -women; others, she says, took the job because they wanted to protect democracy.

But Emelia is motivated by rules. The literal enforcement of laws.

[Emelia] Um, it was my job? Yeah, I mean, there's, there's people in there that have lives and have families just like you and me, and it was my job to protect them and make sure that they go home and can do their job at the end of the day. And it's none of our places to say what they're doing is wrong or right. I have no idea what they're voting on 99% of the time, so, have at it to 'em.

She feels the same about protesters – have at it to 'em.

And in 2020, there were a lot of protests for Emelia and her colleagues to manage.

There were the weekly Fire Drill Fridays led by Jane Fonda and other climate activists. Those were easy. Emelia says the activists would file a permit and even gave Capitol Police a heads up about when they planned to block traffic or how many people would get arrested.

And of course, there were the George Floyd protests. Those days Emelia remembers as more heated. She was spit on. People cursed and screamed in her face. It sure wasn't fun, she says, but it was her job.

[Lauren] So up until it sounds like – and correct me if I'm wrong here – it sounds like up until January 6th, you really hadn't had some sort of, like, traumatic or even, like your feelings hadn't even been hurt at work.

[Emelia] Yeah, so we knew, I mean obviously, like, Biden had won the presidency then, you know, Trump was... I don't, I mean, I don't listen to the – I don't watch the news. But I knew obviously, like, he wasn't happy with the results and, you know, it was, it was brewing. So, my original shift was 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. that's when I worked. I had come in early that day. Um, so ironic...

Emelia didn't usually come in early. But she had a little arrangement going with a colleague she liked named Officer Brian Sicknick.

Brian didn't always like working overtime or holidays, but Emelia liked the extra money, so she'd cover for him.

On January 6th, Brian was scheduled to come in four hours early, at 11 a.m. But Emelia offered to take it, letting Brian start his day later on. What's an extra four hours?

[Emelia] My first two hours were on the east side. Um, and the crowd was growin' and we were like, "Oh, this is a pretty big crowd," you know, but they were being normal for, for what it was. Um... We kind of like protests because it gives you a time that it's pulling officers from everywhere. So people that you don't normally see every day, you can be like, "Hey! How ya do–" You know? And like, check in on one another. So, it was, it was very just happy go lucky. For us, it was, really even up until the point, it was very normal.

A few hours into her shift, things were still just "happy go lucky."

Emelia pops inside the Capitol, heads downstairs to the House cafeteria to grab a sandwich. She checks the time, realizes she's due outside, so she heads back up to the west front of the Capitol.

(sound of Jan. 6 crowd noise)

[Emelia] And I was like, "Holy... That's a lot of people!"

The Capitol was blocked off even more than usual. Because the stage was being built for soon-to-be President Joe Biden's inauguration.

[Emelia] We had the bike racks up and it was barricaded like it normally was for a, um, a thing. And then, I don't know if something came over the radio and it, it just... flipped.

(police radio: "Intel: We're being advised, you've got a group of about 50 are charging up the hill on the west front, just north of the stairs. They're approaching the wall now.")

(Jan. 6 rioters yelling, woman's voice: "We're stormin' the Capitol...")

[Emelia] And as soon as they hit the grass on the west front of the Capitol, they just started running. And I've never seen anything like it. Like they... and just full-fledged running towards us. Like, one minute the west front was empty and now it's completely covered in people.

(Capitol rioters yelling, woman's voice yells: "It's our house!")

(music in)

[Emelia] There's always people that kind of like push the bike racks and we push them back and we say, no, you know, don't cross the bike rack. You know, like we were doing our thing. And for me, it was this guy, just went and there was a ladder, um, that was right by the, the scaffolding. And he, like, went to take the ladder and I, I was like, "What the f**k are you doin'?" And I grabbed the ladder and then, the the other officer came and, you know, we took control of the ladder and I kind of like flung it up the stairs. And I was like, "What the f**k?!" And then all of a sudden it was just chaos!

(sound of airhorns, Capitol rioters screaming)

[Emelia] It was like absolute chaos and it was... There was officers everywhere. Officers were spraying OC spray at them and, and it was just getting in the air. And then they were spraying shit back and it was in the air.

OC spray is pepper spray. Officers were trying to use it to hold their line, but rioters were spraying stuff back at them. And Emelia says she and her colleagues were not prepared to manage it.

[Emelia] So like at one point, I got sprayed with like OC spray or something, and we had nothing set up. So, I was looking around, I was like, "Who has a water bottle? You know, I have to get this out of my eyes."

Emelia finds some random Yeti water bottle on the ground and starts flushing out her eyes with it.

Once she's able to see clearly Emelia happens to glance down at her smart watch and she sees tons of notifications from her family group text.

[Emelia] My aunt at one point was like, "Are you watching this?" Um, and then my sister was like, "Is she okay?" Um, I remember being on the stairs. I was helping with the, the OC spray on somebody, and I had just doused her eyes and I looked up, and I just, I kind of had that free moment and I, I knew I was like, this is going to be the only time to say something and I found my mom's name and I texted her, "I'm okay."

[Emelia] No, no, I mean, I had just been OC sprayed and I, you know, they were – I thought I was going to die. I did not think – At the beginning of, of it all, I did not think I was going to live through that day... I just knew it calmed them down.

(sound of rioters fades out) (music in)

Once she sends that text to her mom, Emelia snaps back to attention. She starts thinking quickly. She's not wearing any riot gear. She's just in her normal uniform. No shield or helmet or ballistic vest.

[Emelia] So at one point I was like, well, what can, what can I do where I'm going to keep myself safe? I eventually pivoted, I don't know at what moment, but I was like, "I will get injured officers."

She spotted a Capitol Police officer lying on the ground, clearly hurt. So, she runs into the crowd, put her arms around his shoulders and dragged him inside the Capitol. She remembers there's an office inside with a first aid station. A place that would be safe.

[Emelia] So, I pulled that first guy, I went back there was an officer who was like three months pregnant, pulled her off the line. You know, I was like, "You need to go check it, you know, take care of your baby. You need to get checked out." Um, and then I was going back out like ah... Oh, I don't even want to put a number. I don't even know how many times I went in and out. But, um, anyways, one of my coworkers got pulled into the crowd, and so we went after him and whatnot and pulled him back and his eye was cut open, like, just completely bleeding.

[Emelia] It was rough. Um, and I, uh, I brought him inside, and I had my arm wrapped around him because he was like, you know, delirious and whatnot. And around that time, I said, we need to get an ambulance here. And we, it... we got the first calls that they had broken through the barricade on the east side of the Capitol.

(Capitol rioters breaking through barricades, yelling, breaking glass)

Everyone and everything had to be moved immediately. Emelia had no idea how many rioters had broken through or even where they were. She just had to get these injured officers to safety.

As they start moving through the corridors of the Capitol, Emelia says she starts to lose track of time.

They end up in a room somewhere that's deemed safe. Someone locks the door. Emelia is stuck inside with all the injured officers.

Hours go by.

[Emelia] And, uh, you know, the, my partner, um... I called him my pa– I have no idea. I mean, I know his name is Michael. He worked for Metropolitan PD, so I had never met him up until this day. But he was the one with the eye injury. He was like, "Campbell, we have to go back out there! We have to go back out there!" And I was like, "We can't–" I was like, "We can't do anything."

(music fades out)

By 7, 8 o'clock at night, we got the, the radio that it had been cleared and that the building was deemed safe. Then it was, there was, we had a sergeant come in, um, and he was talkin' and, and it was all like, it was just so hazy. But I remember him talking to people and writing down names. And I realize now, looking back, that he needed to figure out who was injured, who needed an ambulance, all that kind of stuff. Um, he came over to me and he said, "How are you feelin'?" And I was like, "I'm, I'm worried about him."

"Him" meaning Michael, the officer with the eye injury. He finally got into an ambulance.

EMELIA: And so once he left, that was my moment that I could, I was like, okay. I was like, "My partner is getting the help that he needs. The, you know, people, the protesters are out of the building." And then like, all of a sudden – (laughs) It's pretty amazing how your body works. My hand started burning. I've never felt a worse burn in my entire life. And I looked down and it was like red. And like, there was a bubble – Like, my skin had, like, bubbled up. So, I went over to the sink and, like, poured, you know, put the cold water on. And I was just running my hand through it. And somebody came over to me and was like, "Oh!!"Just made like an audible like... And they're like, "What happened?!" I was like, "I don't, I don't know. I was like, I have no idea!" I was like, "I didn't even notice until... 20 seconds ago!"

She'd been so focused on helping, surviving, she didn't even realize she'd been hurt. Eventually, Emelia and a few other officers are taken out of the capitol and into an ambulance.

She spends hours at the hospital with many of her colleagues. She's treated and eventually someone comes and starts taking them back to the Capitol.

[Emelia] I just never forget, it was about 5, 6 o'clock the next morning. Um, we got the ride back from the hospital to the Capitol building, and we were walking through the Capitol and just the... the destruction. And it was cloudy inside from the smoke and the spray, and we were just walking down the hall and we were seeing broken glass and debris and somebody's shoe, like, that they lost.

(music in)

And you could just sense the, the emotion in the air and you can sense that, you know, we had all just gone through something that none of us really knew what had just happened. And, um... and, uh, yeah, it was...

[Emelia ] Yeah. It was crazy. Um...

Emelia starts tearing up. She re-lives this day in her head all the time, but it usually stays in there. She hardly ever talks about it, especially this next part.

As she walks through the haze, she spots a group of officers...

[Emelia] They were, like, sitting on the bench outside of our – you know, just kind of slumped over, defeated. We were just all defeated mentally, physically, emotionally. Um, and I heard about, I heard about Brian Sicknick.

Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who Emelia always covered for. Who she covered for on January 6th. Brian had collapsed at the Capitol. Another officer tried to give CPR, but it wasn't looking good. Brian was taken to the hospital and was currently on life support.

Emelia was exhausted, defeated, badly burned, and now, incredibly worried.

It was mid-morning now on January 7th. January 6th was over. Except it had only just begun.

(music up and out)

- BREAK -

United States Capitol Police Officer Emelia Campbell is gutted.

She sits down on her couch. In the apartment she shares with her boyfriend Rob, also a Capitol Police officer.

It's about 10 a.m. on January 7th. She's finally home, 24 hours after she started her shift on January 6th.

Emelia is glued to a group text she has going with other officers. She is desperate to hear what's going on with Brian Sicknick – the colleague Emelia always covers for who is in critical condition. It's hard for her to text back though – her hand is wrapped up tightly.

Doctors don't know what she was sprayed with – some kind of homemade chemical. It burned through her skin and damaged her nerve endings. The doctors at the hospital told her she's gotta stay home; no work for a few days.

Emelia is not having it.

[Emelia] I absolutely hated it. And I kept texting, like, my inspector and whatnot. I was like, "I don't want to be here. I need to be there with you guys. Like, we, you know, there's so much happening and so much that needs to get done and cleaned up."

If she's home, she can't help. And if she's not helping, she has to sit and face whatever the hell just happened.

Later that night, the group text with her colleagues lights up. There's news about Brian Sicknick.

[Emelia] We got word that they were, they, they took him off support, um, and that he had, he had passed away and... that was rough, um, for me...

Emelia pauses. Her face clouds over.

[Emelia] I took his shift, would he still be alive? I mean, I don't even know what he faced when he came in for a normal shift or what that looked like, or, um, so if he was in the position that I was in during that, I made it out, you know, like, so it's just kind of that, those emotions, you know, the what ifs really, like, took over for me. Um, and still a lot of anger. Um, and there was –

[Emelia] Just that these people had killed somebody over what? You know, because this... You were mad that this guy didn't become president when you wanted him to? Like, who are you...? I mean, I'm all for freedom of speech. I'm all for voicing opinions. But who are you to decide who lives and who dies? And why is it fair that this guy that was just doin' his job, you know, got killed?

Months after Brian died, the D.C. medical examiner determined he had multiple strokes hours after the battle was over. So, the technical determination was he died from natural causes, but the medical examiner also said the riot, quote, "played a role."

Emelia lasted less than 24 hours at home. She had to go back to the Capitol – doctors' orders be damned.

[Emelia] I mean, by the time – I think I ended up saying "f**k it" to the hospital, I went in after that second day. I think by the– I took the 7th off and I literally went in the next day on the 8th.

Emelia is able to talk about all this now, but back then, talking about her feelings was impossible. Not an option.

And when she'd run into her colleagues, it's not like they'd open up either. They just talked about what they saw, the ways they fought the rioters off.

And that just made Emelia feel worse.

...Which is good because it meant she was safe, alive. But during all those hours she spent locked in that room, who else could she have helped?

[Emelia] Could I have, you know, saved somebody? Could I have...? You know, there's like... I just felt kind of wimpy, you know, not that – You know, I didn't go and hide in any means. And I was like, I want... You know, like, you naturally have a fight or flight and mine is fight, 100 – I mean, I am not a flighter. Um, but in some of the, you know, where people were and what they did, mine kind of sounded like, you know, I...

Emelia trails off. She knows this is not a healthy place to let her mind go. The idea that everyone else was brave and fought and she hid – "a flighter" – she gets that's not what happened. That it's not her fault.

But that's the Emelia of now. In January 2021, she was consumed with guilt.

[Emelia] We were all dealing with our problems. Mine were no better than anybody else's. And I just figured, you know, with– In the process of thinking about what everyone else did, I was sure that somebody had bigger trauma than what I had gone through.

All these pent up feelings eventually found a target: her boyfriend, Rob. Because Rob's usual shift at the Capitol started at midnight, so Rob's schedule was to sleep through the day, and work through the night, which means...

It's in this traumatized, angry, isolated state that Emelia throws herself back into work.

And in the days following January 6th, the bosses at Capitol Police decide that everyone will work 12-hour shifts, six days a week. They offered hotel rooms downtown, closer to the Capitol, and Emelia took one.

For the next few months, Emelia's life was as follows: Wake up. Ignore feelings. Dress burn on hand. Walk to Capitol. Work 12 hours. Walk home. Eat a little. Drink a lot. Sleep. Wake up. Do it again.

Vince Carag first spotted Emelia in the Capitol Police breakroom. It was a temporary space that had been set up at the Capitol with coffee and a bunch of donated food.

Vince was in town from Texas. He's a police officer, but he was in D.C. as part of the Wounded Blue, a peer support group made up of officers from all around the country. Their main goal is to help law enforcement officers cope with injuries and trauma.

This moment – Vince noticing Emelia – is an important one. It would be one of two really important breakthroughs for Emelia's mental health.

Vince was sitting with another guy, a colleague of his. And he remembers Emelia walking into the break room because she was apparently impossible to miss.

[Vince] She was, you know, in her, in her winter gear. She was wearing a beanie, arms crossed, and you could feel the tension emanating off of her. And she went walking past, and me and the other guy looked at each other and went, "Wow... We got to talk to her."

(music in)

No one had seen anything like January 6th. But Vince says this violence was especially shocking to Capitol Police officers. Their days aren't usually filled with the typical "nastiness," he calls it, of being a local cop or a state trooper. They're not dealing with murder, or child abuse, active shooters on the regular.

So, Vince was on the lookout for Capitol Police officers who really needed support.

He sees that Emelia's arms are covered in tattoos – brightly colored flowers, a big compass down her forearms. "Great," he thinks, "An easy way to start conversation. And she'll be easy to track down."

[Vince] The next day, around lunchtime, here she comes again. I mean, just same, you know, scowl on her face, just... not a happy camper. And I went, "Here we go! There's my opportunity." So she had gotten her food and she was, she had sat down and I, you know, grabbed another cup of coffee and I walked over and I went, "Hey, how you doin'?" And she kind of looked up at me and grunted.

Vince tries asking about her tattoos. He mentions his dog, a Rottweiler. He shows her pictures.

[Emelia] He would not leave me alone. I walked out to the barricade, which was my next post, and he just, like, stood outside the door and I was... (laughs) And I was like, "Dude! I'm good!" And he's like, "You're not good." He's like, but he's like, "I will wait here until you decide to talk to me." And I was like, "Well, you're going to be waiting a long freakin' time!"

Vince, it turns out, doesn't mind waiting. He chips away at her. Finally, they sit down. And they talk.

He asks her, "When's the last time you had a day off?"

"I haven't," she says.

A good night's sleep?

Nope.

[Vince] And I, I leaned into her and I said, uh, "Are you doing anything you probably shouldn't be doing right now?" And she, she lowered her head and she got a little teary, and she shook her head, shook her head in the affirmative, and I said, you know, like, you know, "Are you drinking too much when you're off?" And she shook her head a little bit more. I said, "Why don't we go have a talk?"

Vince takes Emelia into a private room, and that's where he's really able to get through to her. The first and only person who gets her to open up.

(music in)

Vince understands trauma. He knows how the violence changed Emelia's brain. So, he gives her some coping strategies that might sound basic, but they are essential building blocks toward healing.

[Vince] You know, separate yourself from the job, even if that is a day off. Just... enjoy being you. Stop drinking. You know, not forever, but for right now. And it's, it's okay to talk about these things. And oh, yeah, you got to eat. You've gotta rest and you've got to exercise. You've got to keep your body healthy, because a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

(music out)

Emelia couldn't take all of Vince's advice – she couldn't get time off. The 12-hour shifts continued.

Capitol Police brass, by the way, would face a lot of criticism for those schedules, and for many of the ways they handled January 6th and the aftermath.

But on one of her walks to the hotel after work, Emelia had a second breakthrough. Another coping mechanism – basic, yet profound. And this one came from within.

[Emelia] There was one point where I was, I was very low in life, um, and I would call my... I called my sister up and I asked to speak to my niece.

Emelia is one of five Campbell siblings. Her younger sister Ada Coruth lived in New Hampshire with her fiancé and 4-year-old, Topanga.

Ada and Emelia were close. Ada calls Emelia "Em" or "Emmy."

But Ada says this was kind of an odd request. Topanga and Emelia had never talked on the phone. Emelia, by her own admission, actually hates children. She finds them so annoying. So, Ada was not sure what to expect.

Ada hadn't told Topanga anything about January 6th. She didn't want her daughter to know how scared her mom was. How she worried her big sister had died.

Ada wanted to protect her daughter, but she also wanted to help her sister. So, she handed Topanga the phone.

[Ada] She got on the phone and, you know, Topanga was like, "Hi, Onne Em!" And she calls her "Onne Em" – "O-N-N-E and then, Em."Onnie Em. Um, so she's, like, "Hi, Onne Em!" You know? And, and Em's like, "How's your day?" And that's basically how the conversation started.

(music in)

[Emelia] You know, dad made her brush her teeth, and he's a horrible person, and, you know, like... (laughs) Just normal kind of kid stuff. But it was, it was always just what I needed.

[Ada] And so every night, 7 p.m. – Topanga goes to bed at 7:30 every night – 7 p.m. she was on the phone with Em.

The conversations never strayed into Emelia's trauma. But having this new routine – being distracted by the little things that made life important – they had a powerful effect on Emelia. It punctured a hole in the darkness.

Wake up. Work 12 hours. Call Topanga. Realize there's a world outside of the Capitol. Remember how to interact with civilians. People who love you. Feel a little relief. And do it again.

[Emelia] She kind of just kept me from... honestly, kept me from being suicidal. Um...

(music post)

A reminder: If you need support, call or text 9-8-8 for the Suicide and Crisis lifeline. That's 9-8-8.

Hearing this admission from Emelia made me realize how far the ripple effects of January 6th can truly go. It touched everyone in Emelia's life, even if they were too young to realize it.

Ada calls January 6 "Emmy's thing." Because in their family, that's what it is. A traumatic thing that happened to their sister, their daughter, that affected the entire Campbell family.

[Ada] Emmy wasn't quite honest with the impact Topanga was making until after, like, much later, after the phone calls had ended. And I just kind of sat there and I was just like, "Wow, I'm glad, I'm glad you had that person." You know, I'm glad you, you know, and a part of me wishes it was me. Like, I wish I could have been that person for her to help her through that, but I wasn't. And that's okay. That's okay because she, she needed somebody. And Topanga was that somebody.

(music up and out)

These two bright spots, Topanga and Vince, help carry Emelia through the next four months of 12-hour shifts.

Even after Vince goes home to Texas, he keeps calling or texting her. Sometimes just saying, "Hey! How you doin'?" But it helped, especially since work never got easier.

On January 9th, Capitol Police Officer Howie Liebengood died by suicide. A Metropolitan Police officer, Jeffrey Smith, also died by suicide after the attack.

And then just months later, in April, a man drove his car into two Capitol Police officers injuring one officer and killing the other: Officer Billy Evans, who worked in the First Responders Unit – Emelia's team.

[Emelia] It's just another new traumatic event that we all had to go through. And I wasn't as close with Evans as I was with Brian, um, but I had worked with him multiple times, and it was just another person that I knew, that I had worked with that was killed. And it... Then it just, I, I just couldn't process it. I didn't – I had no... time. I was like, we don't have any days off. I was like, we have no time...

(brief sound of Jan. 6 riot)

...we have no energy...

(longer sound of Jan. 6 riot)

...I have no way to process any of this. And it just all kind of–

(Jan. 6 riot sound)

...came flooding back.

(Jan. 6 riot sound fades up and out)

(pause)

Emelia's boss later told her there was a mass exodus of officers after she quit. In fact, 20% of Capitol Police officers quit after January 6th.

(music in)

Emelia packs up and heads home to New Hampshire. She leaves her dream life and her boyfriend in D.C. Rob and Emelia definitely broke up, by the way. She says it likely would have been their fate anyway, but January 6th did not help.

Over the next year or so, Emelia bounces around – a friend's house, then Ada's house, then her parents'.

She tries an old security job at an outdoor concert venue, but she can't handle the crowds. When people cheer, she collapses to the ground.

She was constantly on high alert. Anything could set her off. Here's how Ada describes Emelia back then.

[Ada] She was like a, um, like a firework. You know, when you light a firework and then you have, like, that 10 seconds to run away and it lights up? She was like that. So, I could say "good morning" to her in the morning and be like, "Hi." And she'd be in this fantastic mood. I could turn around with a glass of milk. "Why are you giving me milk? Why isn't it coffee? I want coffee!" "Okay, Em, I'll get you coffee." Like, it could be so instant, like, you know? We were always kind of on edge, but I don't blame her. It wasn't her fault, you know?

It wasn't her fault. Slowly, Emelia will come to understand that.

Therapy was a big help. Vince set her up with a trauma therapist in New Hampshire and it took a while. Emelia didn't say much in the first few sessions. But she kept showing up and her therapist kept asking things.

[Emelia] I was like, "Oh, she's trying so hard," you know? (laughs) So, I was like, "Maybe I'll start talking." It was kind of like that subconscious, like... And then I just, I finally opened up a little bit and it just started feelin' good. And I would open up a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.

But Emelia thinks the biggest impact on her mental health was Scotty.

(sound of dog panting and scratching excitedly at metal crate door)

Scotty is a very high energy, very fluffy pomsky. A Pomeranian and husky mix.

[Emelia, on video] Hi, hi! You ready go out? Oooh, okay, alright... (fades down)

This is from a video Emelia texted me to show me how amped Scotty is when she gets home.

Vince brought Scotty and Emelia together. He hooked Emelia up with a nonprofit that gives trained emotional support animals to first responders.

Emelia brought Scotty home just over a year after January 6th and her life immediately improved.

Scotty is specifically trained in crowd control. So, when they're out in public, he circles around Emelia and pushes people away.

He even helps Emelia sleep. She sometimes has night terrors and when she's in the throes of one, Scotty is trained to wake her up. He turns on the lights. And if that doesn't work, he jumps on her chest until she gets up.

Emelia wasn't back to her old self. She doesn't think she'll ever be that person again, but she was better.

(sound of a lawnmower fades up)

Back in Northumberland, Emelia is still on the case of why isn't this woman's water on.

She's sticking her head out the window of her cruiser, talking to a town employee who seems annoyed that Officer Campbell is interrupting his landscaping duties.

It is wild to see Emelia take on this very non-police matter knowing how her law enforcement career started. Northumberland is an entirely other planet from Capitol Hill.

It's honestly stunning to just see Emelia in uniform, knowing she's constantly fighting off the remnants of January 6th. The chemical burn on her hand still bothers her. And at any moment, a call could come in that takes her right back to that day.

She returned to law enforcement in December of 2022.

And Ada, Emelia's sister, she has a lot of thoughts about this. I read some of the transcript of my interview with Ada as Emelia drove around.

[Lauren] So, I asked Ada, "What do you think about Emelia being a cop?" And she said, "I thought it was real stupid."

(Emelia laughs)

[Lauren] "What is she frickin' doing? I'm sorry, Em" – she says, in the recording so many times, Emelia, she says, "I'm sorry, Em, but I think that's the stupidest thing. She's back in the field that caused this PTSD. There's so many other jobs she could do so well. It's so stupid to put yourself in a vulnerable position. Why would you put yourself in a position to have something bad happen to you again?"

[Emelia] Yeah, she's not wrong. Um, I think 'cause right now, at the end of the day, it's the only thing I know how to do, and I think I do it well. So, um... No, I mean, I have that conflict with, with certain calls that come through at certain times and, um, you know, I think about that.

Emelia's PTSD, depression, and anxiety, they're not going anywhere. But Emelia says she knows how to take better care of herself.

Having a quieter police gig is actually kind of helpful. She visits her moo cow friends when her anxiety is high. The calls, though annoying, aren't as violent.

And she needs the experience because Emelia has a new dream job.

Emelia wants to start her own nonprofit where local police departments hire her to come in and create mental health support programs for their officers.

Over the past few years, Emelia's spent any spare brain space that she has on this goal. She got a masters degree in forensic psychology. And now she's applying for PhD programs.

[Emelia] (long pause) ...Because I almost died. I mean, I, I don't think had I not had the, um, friends that I made after, if I hadn't been talking to Vince, if I didn't have the family that I had, I wouldn't be here today. I know I wouldn't. Um, so that's huge for me to... You know, when, when you kind of go through something, you know, that your life is worth living and why are you still here? And I think this is my purpose is to make sure that others know that they need to be here, too, um, and to help them through that to, to, uh, to know that they're not alone. (pauses)

(music in)

If you've been wondering how Emelia feels about the election next week, you might be surprised to hear that she is pretty un-phased by it.

Some of her former Capitol Police Officer colleagues are very involved in the election, campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris even. But that's not Emelia's style. The girl hates politics.

I asked her about the election and about the rioters themselves many times.

The people who the federal government has now charged with harming her? They're people who former President Donald Trump has called patriots.

In the first few months of 2021, Emelia says, she was definitely mad at Trump. She says he acted childish, like a toddler. He was supposed to be the person that we look up to, she told me. Instead, his supporters were brainwashed, she says, into conducting violence on his behalf.

But she's moved on from that anger. She's not mad at Trump anymore. And her feelings about the rioters themselves are more nuanced.

She is forever a Capitol Police officer, a person whose job it was to protect our freedom of speech. There are plenty of people, she says, who did not break any laws that day, who were just there to voice their opinion.

But for the rioters who climbed the walls, stormed the Capitol, stole things, broke things, wanted to hang Vice President Mike Pence, and hurt Emelia's friends – she wants those people to take responsibility, and it bothers her that so many people still aren't, even to this day.

(music out) (fade up sound of driving in police cruiser)

[Emelia, answering phone] Officer Campbell...

We're nearing the end of our ride along through Northumberland and Groveton, and suddenly, Emelia's phone lights up. It's the woman without the water!

[Emelia, talking on the phone] Well, perfect. You actually may... I just got in contact with the water department, so they may be knocking on your door, um, just so you know, because I told them about your situation and they were going to come check it out, um, but I'm glad to hear that it's back and I would fire that plumber! (laughs)

A break in the case, the water is back on. Emelia breaks out into a huge smile.

[Emelia] If you ever have any comments, questions, or concerns, please don't hesitate to call, okay? ...Alright. Have a great day. Alright. Bye... And another crime solved in Groveton... Gotta love it when that happens.

(music up)

This story was reported and written by me, Lauren Chooljian.

Jason Moon produced and mixed this piece, and composed all the music.

Katie Colaneri is our editor.

Additional editing by Dan Barrick, Todd Bookman, Taylor Quimby, and Kate Dario.

The audio you heard from January 6th was sourced from videos posted by Capitol rioters and protesters on social media and later published by ProPublica. The audio of police radio traffic that day came from a Congressional hearing.

Photography by John Tully and podcast artwork by Sara Plourde.

NHPR's News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.

is a production of the team at New Hampshire Public Radio.