Terrorist beats an officer with an American Flagpic.twitter.com/HVNa0i9E9O
— Cleavon MD (@Cleavon_MD) January 11, 2021
Federal authorities say they’ve caught the man seen on video striking a Capitol police officer during the D.C. insurrection. The defendant, Peter Francis Stager, is an Arkansas resident, according to authorities cited by a KATV report.
Supporters of President Donald Trump raided the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 after POTUS continued to claim that he won the 2020 presidential election and it was being stolen from him. As seen on video, hoards of supporters clad with pro-Trump gear (and whose social media histories dating back years proclaimed support for Trump) broke their way through police lines. Officials say one of the videos of the incident shows Stager using an American flag and a pole in order to strike a Capitol officer.
Investigators say that rioters grabbed an officer identified as B.M. and yanked him down the stairs of the Capitol. They struck him in his head and body while he was prone.
According to authorities, a person who identified Stager claimed to speak to the defendant. The defendant said he believed the person he was attacking was a member of ANTIFA.
Five people died during the riots. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot and killed by Capitol police when she tried to climb through a window into an area where elected representatives were sheltering from the mob. Three others–Rosanne Boyland, 34; Kevin Greeson, 55; and Benjamin Phillips, 50–died from what cops described as “medical emergencies.” The death of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick is being investigated as a possible murder; he was allegedly struck with a fire extinguisher and later died.
A second Capitol police officer, Howard Liebengood, died by suicide on Saturday. Christopher Stanton Georgia, a 53-year-old Georgia man who was arrested in D.C. on Jan. 6, also died by suicide over the weekend.
[Screengrab via Twitter]
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