Forum: World Events
Posts: 526 |
Account Type: Free
17 Apr 21 5:00 am
+ CAPITOL RIOTS:
Oath Keeper Becomes First Capitol Insurrectionist to Rat Out Fellow Rioters
ONE DOWN
Pilar Melendez
National Reporter
Updated Apr. 16, 2021 4:40PM ET Published Apr. 16, 2021 12:09PM ET
DOJ/Criminal Complaint
A heavy metal guitarist and self-described “founding” member of the Oath Keepers who stormed the U.S. Capitol armed with bear spray has become the first Jan. 6 insurrectionist to plead guilty and cooperate with the feds, prosecutors said Friday.
Jon Ryan Schaffer, a 53-year-old from Indiana, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and entering a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon during a Friday hearing. During the hearing, Judge Amit Mehta also revealed that Schaffer will be sponsored for witness protection.
“The defendant in this case admits forcing his way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 for the express purpose of stopping or delaying congressional proceedings essential to our democratic process. These actions are disgraceful and unacceptable,” FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate said in a statement.
The plea, which requires his full cooperation with federal prosecutors in their ongoing investigation, marks the first time a rioter has copped to his crimes on Jan. 6. It’s been exactly 100 days since thousands of MAGA rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Joe Biden's electoral certification. So far, 400 individuals have been charged in connection to the riots.
Schaffer was released after the Friday hearing until his sentencing, though he must now submit to court supervision in the Northern District of Indiana, surrender his passport, and stay away from Washington, D.C. His release came after his attorney argued for no travel restrictions, claiming Schaffer is an “internationally known musician and recording artist.”
Plea negotiations between Schaffer’s lawyers and federal prosecutors were unintentionally disclosed earlier this month after sealed Department of Justice documents were accidentally filed on the public docket.
“The government’s ongoing plea negotiations with this defendant are the first and most advanced plea negotiations involving any of the over 300 Capitol Riot defendants,” federal prosecutors wrote in the April 5 filing. By pleading guilty on Friday, Schaffer will likely face a four-year prison sentence.
The guitarist and founding member of the heavy metal band Iced Earth was initially charged in January with six crimes for participating in the Jan. 6 siege while wearing a hat that proclaimed him to be an “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.”
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In his plea agreement, Schaffer “acknowledged he is a founding lifetime member of the Oath Keepers,” and admitted to traveling to D.C. to protest the results of the presidential election, which he believed was rigged, prosecutors stated.
“Schaffer admitted to being among the first individuals to push past the damaged doors and into the Capitol building, forcing officers to retreat. Schaffer and others advanced toward five or six backpedaling USCP officers while members of the mob swelled inside of the Capitol and overwhelmed the officers,” prosecutors said in a press release announcing his plea agreement. “The officers ultimately deployed a chemical irritant to disperse the mob. Schaffer was among the people who were sprayed in the face, after which exited while holding his own bear spray in his hands.”
During the siege, Schaffer allegedly sprayed multiple U.S. Capitol police officers with bear spray as they breached the government building. A criminal complaint also states Schaffer verbally assaulted officers inside the building.
Long before his decision to storm the Capitol alongside his paramilitary members, prosecutors state Schaffer held far-right extremist views.
“During an interview in 2017, Schaffer identified himself as an ‘anarchist’ and referred to the federal government as a ‘criminal enterprise.’ During that same interview, Schaffer stated that the 2016 Presidential election was ‘rigged,’” the complaint states.
After the election, Schaffer attended several Trump rallies protesting the election results, including one March event where he told reports, “If somebody wants to bring violence, I think there’s a lot of us here that are ready for it. We don’t want that, but if they bring it we’re going to respond to that, trust me.”
So far, prosecutors have charged over a dozen Oath Keepers with conspiracy, including Jessica Watkins, a 38-year-old former Army vet accused of recruiting members to “fight hand to hand” to take over the Capitol. Prosecutors describe the Oath Keepers as “an organization that characterizes itself as a militia of former law enforcement and military personnel and has often, as a group, urged President Trump to declare Martial Law in order to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College Results.”
"White supremacists have taken a strong hold inside police departments nationwide, border patrol, ICE, department of homeland security, and our armed forces, and anyone who tells you differently is either not informed or lying to you." -Don Winslow
Personally, for YEARS I have actually thought/felt that Americans *really* should be Wearing Masks So They Don't Go Around Spreading Their Goddamned Nastyass, Funkyass, Smellyass, Infectiousass Cooties Everygoddamnwhere.
Co-published with FRONTLINE.
Rioters on the front steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021
Series:The Insurrection
The Effort to Overturn the Election
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
This story is part of a collaboration between ProPublica, Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program and FRONTLINE that includes the documentary American Insurrection, airing 10 p.m. Eastern on April 13 on PBS.
It was 2:20 p.m. on June 6, 2020, and Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old Air Force sergeant who belonged to the anti-government Boogaloo Bois movement, was on the run in the tiny mountain town of Ben Lomond, California.
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With deputy sheriffs closing in, Carrillo texted his brother, Evan, asking him to tell his children he loved them and instructing him to give $50,000 to his fiancée. “I love you bro,” Carrillo signed off. Thinking the text message was a suicide note from a brother with a history of mental health troubles, Evan Carrillo quickly texted back: “Think about the ones you love.”
In fact, Steven Carrillo had a different objective, a goal he had written about on Facebook, discussed with other Boogaloo Bois and even scrawled out in his own blood as he hid from police that day. He wanted to incite a second Civil War in the United States by killing police officers he viewed as enforcers of a corrupt and tyrannical political order — officers he described as “domestic enemies” of the Constitution he professed to revere.
Text messages between Steven Carrillo and his brother Evan shortly before Carrillo allegedly killed a deputy sheriff.
Credit:(Courtesy of Evan Carrillo)
Now, as he texted with his brother and watched deputies assemble so close to him that he could hear their conversations, Carrillo sent an urgent appeal to his fellow Boogaloo Bois. “Kit up and get here,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message that prosecutors say he sent to members of a heavily armed Boogaloo militia faction he had recently joined. The police, he texted, were after him.
“Take them out when theyre coming in,” the text read, according to court documents.
Minutes later, prosecutors allege, Carrillo ambushed three deputy sheriffs, opening fire with a silenced automatic rifle and hurling a homemade pipe bomb from a concealed position on a steep embankment some 40 feet from the deputies. One deputy was shot dead, and a second was badly wounded by bomb shrapnel to his face and neck. When two California Highway Patrol officers arrived, Carrillo opened fire on them, too, police say, wounding one.
“The police are the guard dogs, ready to attack whenever the owner says, ‘Hey, sic ’em boy,’” Carrillo said in an interview, the first time he has spoken publicly since he was charged with murdering both the deputy sheriff in Ben Lomond and, a week earlier, a federal protective security officer at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Oakland.
When Carrillo was finally subdued on June 6, cellphone footage captured him shouting at deputies as they led him away, “This is what I came to fight — I’m sick of these goddamn police.”
Forum: World Events
Posts: 526 |
Account Type: Free
14 Apr 21 9:22 am
+ Insecure, Frustrated Bully With Something To Prove Considering Career In Law Enforcement
8/09/13 9:16AM
The moody, temperamental ball of repressed rage says he would like to serve and protect one day.
RALEIGH, NC—Calling it his lifelong dream, local man Brendan Lockhart, an insecure and perpetually frustrated bully who believes he has something to prove to the world, told reporters Thursday that he is seriously considering a career in law enforcement.
Lockhart, a recent high-school graduate who sources confirmed is plagued by resentment, self-doubt, unexpected fits of rage, and has always had a penchant for tormenting those who are smaller and weaker than him, explained that he feels he is well suited to serve as a police officer.
“I’ve always wanted to be a cop,” said Lockhart, whose paranoia and inferiority complex constantly haunt him, leading him to lash out at others in order to convince them he is in control. “I know it’s a tough line of work, but I think I’ve got what it takes to earn my shield and get out there and keep the peace.”
“This is the job I was born to do,” continued the man whose main goal in life is to prove to others that he is strong, confident, and not afraid.
Friends and family confirmed that Lockhart, an unpredictable, petty individual who frequently loses his temper when he feels he is being threatened or disrespected, has in recent months been inquiring into joining the ranks of the Raleigh Police Department. In this role, the man with a massive chip on his shoulder and no visible sense of empathy would be tasked with peacefully resolving disputes and evenhandedly administering justice to members of the community over whom he would have official power.
Specifically, sources speculated that should Lockhart successfully complete the 17-week officer training program and cursory psychological examination necessary to become a cop, the 18-year-old, who suffers from feelings of inadequacy and frequently explodes in emotional outbursts against people he perceives to be mocking him, would on a daily basis be placed in delicate situations requiring extreme patience and sound judgment.
“My dad’s encouraging me to go to the academy, and he says that once I graduate I can probably get a job around here,” said Lockhart, referring to the man whose own lack of compassion and propensity for inexplicable violence is largely to blame for similar patterns in his son, and who is himself a veteran police officer. “Once I’m a cop, I’m going to do what I have to do to make sure these neighborhoods stay safe.”
“I bet a lot of people don’t think I can do it, but I’ll show them,” continued the man who could in six months’ time possess both a standard-issue firearm and the city-sanctioned authority to unholster and fire the weapon.
When pressed for further comment, sources close to the man who hopes to play an active role in protecting his community confirmed that Lockhart constantly goes out of his way to intimidate and belittle those people he knows are too submissive to fight back. The 18-year-old often fantasizes at length about getting revenge on those he believes have wronged him. When frustrated or enraged with his own general powerlessness in the world, he reportedly has a tendency to take out these emotions on the first person he comes across, with little or no provocation. Lockhart routinely gets in screaming arguments with others and must be physically restrained as his anger reaches a white-hot pitch, frightening all around him. A devoted fan of mixed martial arts, Lockhart is capable of watching YouTube videos of people being pummeled senselessly for hours at a time.
Sources also felt it bears mentioning that Lockhart is an impassioned and unapologetic racist.
When asked to outline his motivations for entering the field of law enforcement, the perpetually infuriated bully who could very soon be responsible for the security and well-being of thousands of innocent people explained that he feels a personal obligation to do whatever necessary to safeguard society.
“There’s a lot of bad people out there who think they can get away with doing whatever they want, and someone has to stop them,” said Lockhart, his hands unconsciously closing into tight fists. “So if I don’t step up and show everyone who’s boss, who will?”
“Plus, I’ve been talking to my buddies at the gym, and a bunch of them are gonna be cops too,” Lockhart continued. “It’ll be great.”
