The Justice Department has released a trove of videos, including police body-worn camera footage, allegedly showing assaults against police officers defending the U.S. …
The Justice Department has released a trove of videos, including police body-worn camera footage, allegedly showing assaults against police officers defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6. The videos, made available after NPR and other media organizations filed a legal motion for their release, are further evidence of the violent nature of the Capitol riot and are cited as evidence in the assault cases against Thomas Webster and Scott Fairlamb. Though the storming of the Capitol was widely covered across virtually all news media and live-streamed by many of the people there, several Republican lawmakers have sought to play down the violence that happened in an attack that left five people dead. But despite the GOP rhetoric, the charges against defendants like Webster and Fairlamb are not an anomaly. Rather, they are part of a larger pattern of violence wrought that day, particularly against the largely outnumbered police officers who were there. Of the more than 500 people now charged in relation to the storming of the Capitol, at least 96 of them, or nearly 1 in 5, are accused of committing acts of violence, according to a database created and maintained by NPR of all the people charged in the riot. According to court documents, Webster is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and retired New York City Police Department officer. He is facing seven charges for his alleged involvement in the Capitol riot and has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
