Another member of the Trump-incited crowd that attacked the Capitol last year has been arrested by federal authorities, and this time, that rioter — Michigan man Luke Michael Lints — was implicated in part by his own mother, who spoke with federal investigators as they built their case against him.
“The FBI interviewed LINTS’ mother and showed her photos of LINTS at the Capitol, including the images depicted in Figure 9,” a document filed in Lints’s case states. “LINTS’ mother identified LINTS in the photographs. LINTS’ mother stated that on January 6, 2021, she had a medical episode while walking along Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol, and had to take an ambulance to the hospital. LINTS’ mother stated that she was unsure what LINTS did while she was hospitalized, but on the way back to Michigan, LINTS’ mother stated that LINTS appeared scared because of what he had done at the Capitol, and would not talk about it with her.” At the Capitol, Lints participated in the violence around the Lower West Terrace tunnel area, where rioters sought to force their way into the building as police officers guarded that targeted entrance. That portion of the Capitol grounds was among those that saw particularly intense violence that day.
It’s there that D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges was infamously pinned and assaulted by the crowd as he called out in pain, as shown in a piece of footage that’s been widely circulated. Hodges has been publicly vocal about what he went through while attempting to defend the Capitol; he was among the officers at the House riot committee’s first public hearing last year. Meanwhile, Lints apparently made it to the front of the riot crowd pushing against and assaulting police in the Lower West Terrace tunnel on January 6. In footage showing the immediate aftermath of Lints’s time at the front of the tunnel crowd, his face looks slightly red, as though he was affected by a chemical spray deployed either by a rioter or police officer trying to protect themselves, the Capitol, and the people inside it from the brutal mob that would have no doubt committed only further atrocities had they been able to physically access top government leaders such as then-Vice President Mike Pence.
At one point while in the tunnel, Lints utilized a riot shield to stop a police officer from closing a door that apparently could’ve blocked rioters from further accessing law enforcement and the inside of the building. Another riot participant who engaged in violence in the Lower West Terrace tunnel area at the Capitol was also recently caught: 47-year-old Rhode Island man Bernard Joseph Sirr. Meanwhile, Lints’s charges include civil disorder (a felony), entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, as summarized by Law&Crime. Underlying investigations at the Justice Department into the violence of January 6 and incidents connected with it are continuing, even as certain rioters’ cases reach advanced stages. The first rioter to be convicted at a jury trial, Texas man Guy Reffitt, will be sentenced August 1 this year.
Featured image: Brett Davis, available under a Creative Commons license
