“I put my emotions behind me to do what I thought was right,” said Jackson Reffitt, who weeks before the siege alerted the F.B.I. that his father was planning “something big.”
Two days after the Capitol riot on Jan.6, Jackson Reffitt’s father, Guy W. Reffitt, returned to the family’s home in Texas. He told his son that he had stormed the Capitol, according to an F.B.I. affidavit. Then his father leveled a threat: If Jackson,18, reported him to the police, he would have no choice but to do his “duty” for his country and “do what he had to do.” In interviews with investigators, Jackson Reffitt said his father told him: “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor. And you know what happens to traitors. Traitors get shot.” But he had already reported his father to the F.B.I. weeks before the riot. “He would always tell me that he’s going to do something big,” the younger Mr. Reffitt said in a phone interview on Saturday. “I assumed he was going to do something big, and I didn’t know what.” Guy Reffitt’s wife told investigators after the riot that he was a member of the Three Percenters, a far-right militia group, according to the affidavit. F.B.I. agents found an AR-15 rifle and a pistol at his home. The elder Mr. Reffitt told investigators that he had brought the pistol with him to Washington. Jackson Reffitt said he learned that his father was headed to Washington the day before the riot but that he did not know what he would be doing there. He discovered what was happening when he saw images of rioters storming the Capitol on the news.
