(CNN)The Senate has unanimously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the

officers of the US Capitol Police and the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police
Department, nearly seven months after the insurrection at the Capitol.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, while introducing the measure, which passed
the House in June, said that "January 6th unleashed many horrors, but it also
revealed many heroes." The bill now goes to President Joe Biden's desk for his
signature.
Schumer also criticized the 21 House Republicans who voted against the awarding of
the medal, saying that some of them "were some of the same folks who likened the
January 6th attack to, quote, a normal tourist visit, who deny the events that day
were an insurrection. The same folks who screamed the loudest about the dangers of
defunding the police, refuse to defend the police. The very police who shielded
them from a vicious mob."
"For the life of me, I don't know how they sleep at night," Schumer said. But he
suggested that the bill would not face any opposition in the upper chamber. "The
Senate is different. I expect it will pass unanimously," which it did.
Earlier this year, the Senate unanimously voted to award a Congressional Gold Medal
to Officer Eugene Goodman, who singlehandedly led a mob of insurrectionists away
from the Senate chamber minutes before the chamber doors were sealed with senators
still inside. But the House version of the legislation opted to award the medal to
the whole of the police force rather than singling out one individual for the
medal.
The revised bills will now award three medals -- one to the entire US Capitol
Police force, and one to the Metropolitan Police Department, "so that the
sacrifices of fallen officers and their families, and the contributions of other
law enforcement agencies who answered the call of duty on January 6, 2021, can be
recognized and honored in a timely manner." A third will be put on display at the
Smithsonian Institution, with a plaque that lists all the law enforcement agencies
that protected and defended the Capitol.