Evidence Collected By Federal Investigators Details Capitol Rioters Attacking Police

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DC Police body camera footage, testimonies from law enforcement officers, and rioter social media posts, all recounted in Federal Court documents, paint a more complete picture of the hand-to-hand combat between law enforcement and supporters of former President Donald Trump during the violence. insurrection he provoked on January 6.

Officers were beaten with everything the rioters had with them, according to court documents, including an American flag and a fire extinguisher. Scuffles near the broken glass resulted in scratches and bruises. Some rioters threw punches, while others hurled verbal slurs at the police.

US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was killed in the melee. More than 100 other police officers were injured, including members of the Capitol Police and the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. At least 15 officers were hospitalized after the insurgency.

Federal prosecutors have already charged dozens of people who allegedly participated in the riot, but the most serious charges are against people involved in attacks on police. And the hundreds of pages of newly unsealed court documents tell a gruesome story.

A Texas resident who faces charges allegedly incited the crowd before entering the Capitol through a broken window. He shouted into a megaphone, “If you have a gun you must get your gun” and “this is not a peaceful protest,” according to court documents.

Prosecutors say retired Pennsylvania firefighter Robert Sanford, 55, threw a fire extinguisher at a group of police officers on the West Patio of the Capitol. The extinguisher hit three police officers in the head, one of whom was later sent to hospital for a medical evaluation.

Sanford’s attorney did not respond to the request for comment. He told The Associated Press that his client had “got caught in the mentality of the crowd.”

In another incident, Arkansas resident Peter Stager beat a DC officer with a pole that held an American flag, prosecutors said. Court documents describe a heartbreaking scene where the officer was dragged to the ground and surrounded by rioters.

Stager told an FBI informant that he believed he was attacking a member of the violent leftist group Antifa, although photos from the scene clearly show the officer wearing a police vest. A Stager lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, another group of assailants surrounded a DC policeman and repeatedly shot him in the neck, causing a heart attack. The officer, Michael Fanone, had previously reminded CNN that he begged the rioters to spare his life. “I just remember shouting that I have kids,” he says.
CNN had previously reported that many U.S. Capitol Police officers felt betrayed by their leadership, with officers left in previous positions throughout the attack sadly unprepared and vastly outnumbered by the pro-Trump crowd. Agents told CNN they heard colleagues asking for help, both with specific emergencies and with a comprehensive plan to take back the Capitol.

Melee combat

Some participants in the riot were armed with bear bombs and other weapons. Others simply wandered around the building and looked at the statues. But for the first time since the War of 1812, federal forces inside the Capitol found themselves engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

An accused, Mark Leffingwell of Seattle, was allegedly involved in a fight with the police.

“Leffingwell tried to overtake me and other officers,” wrote US Capitol policeman Daniel Amendola in an affidavit under oath a day after the insurgency. “When he was dissuaded from advancing further into the building, Leffingwell hit me several times with a closed fist.”

A lawyer for Leffingwell did not respond to a request for comment.

Some scuffles got out of hand. As an officer tried to prevent rioters from entering the Capitol through a broken window, he fell to the ground, which was “covered in glasses,” according to indictment documents against a father and son from Delaware in Washington.

Another rioter warned police inside the Capitol that they would have to withdraw if they did not want to be hurt by the oncoming crowd of Trump supporters, court documents show.

Bodycam footage included in a criminal complaint showed the perspective of police officers who were overrun by dozens of rioters. According to court documents, some of the rioters chanted “f — the police”, although many carried “thin blue line” flags, which are associated with groups that generally argue that law enforcement is unfairly. attacked by the Liberals.

A black police officer previously told CNN that “there was a lot of racism” coming from pro-Trump rioters, and that he had been called racist slurs and epithets by some of the attackers.

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