An Arkansas man who was caught on video beating a Washington, DC police officer with a US flagpole during the Capitol riots was charged Thursday.
Peter Francis Stager has been charged with interfering with a law enforcement officer for allegedly beating a Metropolitan Police officer guarding an entrance to the Capitol.
Prosecutors allege in a criminal complaint that members of the MAGA crowd who stormed the building last Wednesday seized the officer, dragged him down a flight of stairs and forced him into a ‘prone position’ before ‘forcibly and repeatedly’ putting him in the head and body with ‘different objects’.
Video footage shows Stager with a large group on the steps of the Capitol with a flagpole fixed. Another video shows Stager hitting the officer while “lying on the stairs.” The FBI said they learned Stager’s identity from a confidential informant who saw the videos on social media.
“Everyone in there is a treacherous traitor. Death is the only cure for what’s in that building, ”Stager says in a second video: according to the charges.
A second informant confirmed Stager’s involvement and stated that they had spoken to Stager after the January 6 uprising and Stager said it was him in the videos.
The second informant said that Stager claimed he “did not know that the man he was knocked to the ground with the flagpole was a cop and that he thought the person he hit was Antifa.”
However, the officer was easily identifiable, as he was wearing a uniform with the words “METROPOLITAN POLICE” on his back, prosecutors said. Stager is said to have told the second informant that he intended to turn himself in and apologized for assaulting a member of law enforcement.
Stager insisted on the second informant that he was ‘wired’ because he had been sprayed with either pepper spray or tear gas, so he made the comments he made to the camera. ”
Joshua Black, of Leeds, Alabama, was also charged with violent entry and trespassing on Thursday after claiming he wanted to storm the Capitol so he could “ plead the blood of Jesus over it. ”
“When we found out that Pence had turned against us and that they had officially stolen the election, the crowd went crazy. I mean it turned into a crowd. We crossed the gate, ‘Black said in a YouTube video, according to an indictment.
According to court documents, Black was one of the many rioters who stormed the Senate chambers and was photographed inside wearing a red MAGA hat and a bloody cheek. Black later admitted he was on the Senate floor – and had brought a knife.
“I actually had a knife with me, but she never … I was wearing too many clothes, it was freezing out there, you know, so. I never, I had no intention of pulling it. I just carry a knife because I do, ”Black explained according to the complaint. “I’m alone, you can’t carry guns in Washington, and I don’t like being defenseless.”
Black said in the YouTube video that “the spirit of God” wanted him to storm the Senate. He claimed he nearly broke a window in the Capitol, but stopped because “this is our house, we don’t behave like that.”
“I was tempted to, I’m not going to lie,” he said. ‘Because I’m pretty upset. You know? They stole my land. ”
John Earl Sullivan, a 26-year-old founder of Insurgence USA, a social justice group created to protest police brutality following George Floyd’s death, was also arrested and charged on Thursday.
Sullivan filmed hours of footage of the riot, which he uploaded to YouTube, including the moment when Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot.
According to the criminal complaint, he claimed to the FBI that he was an anti-Trump activist and journalist just there to document the protest. However, prosecutors say he has no press credentials, is not affiliated with any media outlets, and has covered the destruction in his own video.
At various points in his video, he helps rioters climb a wall to enter the Capitol, apologizes for breaking one window, and tells rioters trying to smash another window that he has a knife, the complaint said.
At another point he hears it say, “Let’s burn this shit down.”
Filming someone trying to break through an unmarked door, Sullivan says, “That’s what I’m saying, break that shit,” and later adds, “It would be fire if someone had revolutionary music and all.”
“We achieved this shit. We did this together. Fuck yeah! We’re all part of this history,” he says at another point.
Sullivan, who gave several interviews to major TV channels about what he saw during the riot, has been accused of entering a confined building or site, civil disturbances and violent entry.
A slew of MAGA supporters were arrested Thursday, including a retired Pennsylvania firefighter charged with throwing a fire extinguisher that hit three police officers, a man photographed with a Confederate flag in the Capitol, and a former school counselor who passed the Senate Chamber. stormed.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday that federal authorities have identified more than 200 suspects and arrested more than 100 people. “So we know who you are when you’re out there and FBI agents come looking for you,” he said.