Sources from the community and photos from January 6, 2021, rioting led to the arrest of Matthew Jason Beddingfield of North Carolina, who is accused of assaulting a police officer with a flagpole.
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Sources from the community and photos from January 6, 2021, rioting led to the arrest of Matthew Jason Beddingfield of North Carolina, who is accused of assaulting a police officer with a flagpole.
Jon Elswick / AP
Information gathered and posted by an online police network led to the arrests of two men charged separately for storming the US Capitol last year, the FBI said in court filings. judgment.
One of the men – Matthew Jason Beddingfield, 21, of North Carolina – is also accused of attacking police officers with a flagpole during the riots in Washington on January 6, 2021.
Beddingfield and Eric Gerwatowski, 31, of New Hyde Park, New York, were arrested in their home states Tuesday after their cases went unsealed.
The FBI cited information compiled by online investigators on many of the more than 730 riot-related cases filed in federal court to date. In a court filing, the FBI said one of the quotes it received from “previously unaffiliated private citizens” helped investigators identify Beddingfield as a rioter.
In March, HuffPost reported that online investigators used facial recognition software to connect an image of Beddingfield at the Capitol with a photo of him taken after his December 2019 arrest in New York. North Carolina. One of the hashtags associated with Beddington was #NaziGrayHat, “probably because he appeared to perform a gesture commonly associated with Nazis,” an FBI agent said in a court filing. judgment.
Beddingfield, 21, jumped over a barricade and pounced on a group of Capitol police officers, hitting them with a metal flagpole he was carrying, the filing said.
More than an hour later, Beddingfield entered the Capitol and waved his American flag as he made several rounds, the representative wrote. After joining a group of rioters that attempted to storm the Senate Wing, Beddingfield appeared to reuse his flagpole to hit or attempt to hit law enforcement officers, according to the representative.
Beddingfield, a resident of Johnston County, NC, spent about 30 minutes inside the Capitol, the FBI said.
Beddingfield is on probation for a criminal record in North Carolina, and his probation officer identified him in photos of the riot, the FBI said.
A statement of facts supporting the arrest of Eric Gerwatowski, 31, of New Hyde Park, NY, on charges stemming from last year’s riots at the US Capitol, is shown here.
Jon Elswick / AP
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A statement of facts supporting the arrest of Eric Gerwatowski, 31, of New Hyde Park, NY, on charges stemming from last year’s riots at the US Capitol, is shown here.
Jon Elswick / AP
Twitter users gathering information about rioters used the hashtag “#lordlonghair” to organize relationships about suspects the FBI has identified as Gerwatowski. The FBI said it reviewed Twitter posts with that hashtag and also received two tips about Gerwatowski from callers who said they knew him.
One video showed Gerwatowski standing in front of a crowd, where police were trying to close the door to prevent rioters from entering the Capitol. He opened one of the doors the police had just closed, turned toward the crowd, shouting, “Let’s go!” FBI said then entered the building.
One of those officers told the FBI he had made the tactical decision not to engage Gerwatowski and the other rioters.
“Police say he made this decision because he had just arrived from the Galleries area of the Capitol, where another rioter, Ashli Babbitt, was shot. Police told the FBI that he we were exhausted, outnumbered, and attacked and sprayed with some chemicals by the rioters earlier in the day,” an FBI agent wrote.
