Capitol Rioter Brothers Charged With Assaulting Journalist On Jan. 6

The Justice Division on Thursday arrested and charged two brothers who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, accusing them of assaulting a photographer and stealing the journalist’s digital camera.

The brothers, 52-year-old Phillip Walker of Pennsylvania and 49-year-old David Walker of New Jersey, have been charged with forcibly taking an merchandise from an individual and assaulting an individual with the intent to commit one other felony. These are on prime of the misdemeanor expenses confronted by different Jan. 6 rioters.

NBC Information was the primary to report their arrests. Whereas the DOJ’s grievance doesn’t title the photographer, NBC Information recognized her as Erin Schaff, one in every of three New York Instances journalists on the Capitol the day of the riot. She has written about what occurred to her that day, describing her fears of being killed.

“Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry,” she wrote for the Instances a day after the riot. “They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.”

The DOJ’s expenses element an interview the FBI carried out with Phillip Walker a few week after the riot, prompted by a tip the company acquired about his participation. He admitted to the interviewers he had a bodily confrontation with an individual he believed to be a member of “Antifa,” took that individual’s digital camera and later disposed of it in a physique of water.

The FBI’s investigation uncovered that David Walker participated within the riot as properly. Surveillance footage from the riot revealed that he pushed the photographer after she pursued the brothers to retrieve her digital camera tools.

The charging paperwork additionally include a number of pictures of the Walkers on the Capitol that day.

The Walkers are among the many roughly 1,500 individuals who’ve been charged in reference to the riot. Greater than 1,000 have been convicted, with greater than 600 of them punished with incarceration. The longest sentence that’s been handed down is 22 years.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has additionally been indicted on federal expenses for his function in inciting the riot.

The previous president has repeatedly spoken out in assist of the rioters, whilst lately as at this week’s debate between him and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, referring to them as “this group of people that have been treated so badly.”