The FBI has released new footage of the deadly 6 January US Capitol insurrection as it seeks to identify 10 suspects involved in what the agency says were “some of the most violent attacks on officers”.
Law enforcement are still pursuing more than 100 suspects from the attack on Congress, which Donald Trump was accused of inciting and led to his historic second impeachment. Hundreds have been arrested after the violent mob invaded the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
But the 10 suspects highlighted this week by the federal authorities are considered among the most dangerous still at large.
Each of the clips posted to the FBI’s Washington field office website shows the suspects allegedly in the act of assaulting the officers, alongside closeups of their faces, several of them masked but many not.
“The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying 10 individuals suspected of being involved in some of the most violent attacks on officers who were protecting the US Capitol and our democratic process on January 6,” Steven M D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said in a statement accompanying the footage.
“These individuals are seen on video committing egregious crimes against those who have devoted their lives to protecting the American people.”
The FBI said it had already received “hundreds of thousands of tips” following the riots that claimed five lives when a mob stormed the Capitol and invaded the US Senate and House of Representatives.
At a rally earlier in the day, the former president incited his followers to march to the Capitol building and “fight like hell” in support of his false claims that the election was stolen from him.
The massive investigation that ensued led to the arrest of more than 300 individuals, of whom 65 were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers, the FBI said.
The most recent came this week as the agency arrested and charged two men, Julian Elie Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, from West Virginia, with assaulting Brian Sicknick, a US Capitol police officer who died in hospital after the attacks.
Khater was seen in social media footage discharging a spray he referred to as “bear shit” into the 42-year-old officer’s face, court papers allege. The cause of death is not yet known, although investigators believe Sicknick may have ingested a chemical substance, possibly bear spray, that may have played a role.
Earlier this month, Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, called the riots “domestic terrorism” in congressional testimony.
“That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” Wray told the Senate judiciary committee.
“The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a number of years now, and it’s not going away any time soon,” he added, although analysis has concluded that most of the 6 January rioters were unconnected to any extremist group.
The alleged assaults captured in the new FBI footage take place in a variety of locations around the Capitol. All the suspects are male, and several are wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps that became a signature of Trump’s supporters during his tumultuous presidency.
“We’re grateful to the members of the public who have already been a tremendous help in these investigations,” D’Antuono said.
“We know it can be a difficult decision to report information about family, friends, or co-workers, but it is the right thing to do.”
Theguardian.com
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