James Weeks (Images from court documents)
A 55-year-old New York man was arrested for assaulting police during the 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, officials said.
James Weeks, 55, faces felony charges of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers during the riots that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress counting the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election during a “Stop the Steal” rally, authorities said.
Weeks was also charged with several less-serious misdemeanor offenses, including the destruction of government property and aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and engaging in physical violence on grounds or buildings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Weeks was identified in U.S. Capitol building CCTV footage and body-worn camera video on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, during former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, prosecutors said.
In one video, the purple baseball cap-wearing Weeks identified himself, authorities said.
At 3:02 p.m., Weeks entered the Lower West Terrace Tunnel, the location of some of the most violent attacks against law enforcement that day, officials said.
At one point inside, he allegedly reached through a shattered window of a door, gestured at an officer, and yelled, “I’m gonna shove it up your a —! I’m gonna shove that up your a —, you fat f —! I’m gonna f — you up!”
Weeks then moved around the door frame and struck a Metropolitan Police Department officer before officers shot him with pepper spray, authorities said. He left and went to the Senate Wing Door. There, he stood in front of a man kicking a barricaded window and called out, “We need volunteers to keep pushing!”
A second man climbed onto the windowsill and began hitting it. Then, a woman began striking the window with the end of a flagpole before a rioter eventually kicked a hole in the windows as rioters cheered and cried, “Traitors!”
Weeks shook what appeared to be a can of pepper spray in the hole in the window several times and banged the can against the edge. He then struck the window with a stick or pole as another rioter joined him, eventually shattering the glass.
He’s expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
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