During what some call an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, two men were accused of assaulting police officers by pushing bike racks used as barricades into a police line.
On Monday, Farmington, Missouri’s Jared Luther Owens, 41, and St. Clair, Missouri’s Jason William Wallis, 49, were charged with the felony offenses of assault on law enforcement with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disturbance. There are also multiple counts of misdemeanor against them. The charges were lodged in the nation’s capital.
On Friday, police detained Owens, and on Saturday, they apprehended Wallis. Paul Vysotsky, who represents Owens, would not comment. A guy who answered the phones at the Federal Public Defender’s office in St. Louis on Tuesday said that Wallis had requested counsel via the office but did not yet have one.
According to court documents, video footage from the brawl on January 6, 2021, shows the two males chasing and shouting at Capitol police officers.
Cops rearranged bike racks into a makeshift roadblock as rioters closed in on the northeast corner of the Capitol. Court filings indicate Wallis grabbed onto the barricade and, with the help of Owens, shoved it toward the line of cops. According to the paperwork, this led to a fractured right hand and wrist for one police officer.
Later, Owens gathered a mob of protesters near the Capitol’s east front and had them yell, “Whose House? It’s Our House!” According to the court filings, once inside, Owens slammed a Capitol police officer against a wall and burst through a police line.
Prosecutors claim that Owens brought a knife into the Capitol when he and other Trump supporters rushed the building to prevent Democratic challenger Joe Biden from having his 2020 election victory certified. In an earlier speech that day, Trump had urged his fans to “fight like hell” during a rally held near the White House.
Footage of Trump’s speech also includes the directive to protest peacefully and patriotically.
Federal prosecutors claim that more than 1,100 people have been accused of crimes related to the assault on the Capitol, including more than 400 persons charged with assaulting or hindering law enforcement.
