WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have charged a Kentucky man who they believe smashed a glass window in a door leading to the House Speaker’s Lobby during the riot at the U.S. Capitol, moments before and in the same location where rioter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot, court filings show.
An FBI charging affidavit says Chad Barrett Jones, of Mount Washington, Ky., was the man shown in video standing to Babbitt’s left on Jan. 6, wearing a red-hooded jacket and gray cap and striking the lobby door’s glass panels as a mob chanted, “Break it down!” and “Let’s f-----g go!”
Jones allegedly used the pole of a Trump flag to break the window, the affidavit says.
Seconds later, Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran from Southern California, was fatally shot by a police officer as she attempted to move through the broken window into the lobby, an inner sanctum of the Capitol leading to the House floor.
Hers is one of five deaths linked to the riot, which was carried out by supporters of President Donald Trump who wanted to prevent Congress from certifying his election loss to Joe Biden.
U.S. Capitol and District of Columbia police are investigating the shooting of Babbitt, and the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave.
Acting U.S. attorney Michael Sherwin of D.C. has said investigators are probing all aspects of the shooting, including whether the officer, whose name has not been released, used excessive force. They are also examining whether the shooting was foreseeable and occurred during felonies committed by others, in which case those individuals could face felony murder charges.
According to a court filing docketed this weekend, Jones was charged Friday with assaulting a federal officer, civil disorder, obstruction of justice, destruction of property and trespassing. An attorney for Jones could not immediately be identified, and charging papers do not say whether the defendant is in custody.
Prosecutors submitted a statement by FBI Special Agent Javier Gonzalez narrating the three minutes before Babbitt’s lethal shooting.
Citing video footage published by The Washington Post and on YouTube, the agent described apparent lawmakers and officials awaiting evacuation yards behind lobby door, which was barricaded with chairs and protected by officers.
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One man splintered the glass door panels with punches as the crowd shouted at officers, including one person who cried out “F--- the blue” multiple times, the statement by Gonzalez says.
Another voice warned the officers to leave, saying he did not want to see them get hurt. Three officers appeared to move to one side as colleagues in tactical gear arrived, the statement says.
But within seconds, a man identified as Jones allegedly struck the windows with a wooden flagpole at least 10 times, attempting to break in. A police officer, with gun raised, appeared to shoot Babbitt, with Jones still in view at the left, holding the pole, the FBI agent said.
The FBI interviewed a relative and a close friend of Jones who had identified him from footage of the shooting, the agent said. Court papers say the relative, identified as W-1, told the FBI that he spoke with Jones on the night of Jan. 6.
The relative allegedly described Jones’s clothing to FBI agents as a way of identifying him, and said Jones was “using a rolled up Trump flag to attempt to break the glass on an interior door,” the court papers say.
In three FBI interviews, the witness told agents that he contacted Jones after watching news of Babbitt’s death and told him that he needed to contact the FBI or an attorney. Jones allegedly responded by saying he wanted to explain to another close friend “why it all was happening and why it was a hoax.”
That friend, identified as W-2, also allegedly told FBI agents that he recognized Jones from video circulating on the Internet as the man wearing a red jacket and a gray cap, breaking a window inside the Capitol, and standing next to Babbitt.
The FBI said the friend told agents that Jones called him on Jan. 7, saying he was in trouble, admitted that he broke a window and “called himself an idiot.” According to the affidavit, the friend said Jones told him that he was in the middle of the crowd and had been able to walk into the Capitol building “without any problem.”
Jones attended a previous Trump rally in Washington, his relative allegedly told the FBI, adding that he saw on Facebook that Jones was going to the Capitol on Jan. 6. The “Stop the Steal” demonstration that day was inspired by Trump’s repeatedly debunked claims that he lost reelection because of fraud.
At least three others were arrested or charged in their home states over the weekend, the U.S. Justice Department said.
One was Brandon Fellows, 26, of Albany, N.Y., who told Bloomberg News that he had “no regrets” about entering the Capitol and that his Bumble dating profile was “blowing up” after he posted a picture of himself there.
Photos on social media sites show Fellows with his feet propped on a table in the private office of Sen. Jeff. Merkley, D-Ore., and sitting on a police motorcycle outside the Capitol, wearing costume hat, fake orange beard and a red, white and black jacket and the letters “USA” in blue letters, the FBI said. He was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
On Saturday, two cousins were arrested and charged with assaulting police, civil disorder, and other offenses during the riot. One allegedly told a witness that he would return to Washington, armed, for future pro-Trump demonstrations and not go home “unless he was in a body bag,” the FBI said.
An FBI affidavit said Cody Page Carter Connell of Louisiana allegedly described events in a conversation on social media, saying he and his cousin Daniel Page Adams of Texas stormed police and breached the Capitol after Adams “got clubbed and shot with rubber bullet.”
“But we pushed the cops against the wall, they dropped all their gear and left,” the FBI quoted Connell as allegedly saying.
“We will be back and it will be a lot worse than yesterday,” Connell allegedly wrote on Facebook, the FBI said.