Capitol rioter Ronald McAbee will remain in jail as his case continues after federal Judge Emmet Sullivan recently ruled against a push for the former police officer’s release from custody.
McAbee engaged in physical violence at the Capitol. Specifically, he helped drag an officer with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department further into the crowd, after which point the targeted cop sustained a series of physical assaults. (The officer is identified in court documents as “A.W.” Information available elsewhere identifies the targeted officer by the name of Andrew Wayte.) McAbee is charged with an assault offense that specifies he allegedly inflicted bodily injury in connection to his actions against the officer, who needed staples in his head after everything that transpired. Assaulting officers and inflicting bodily injury carries up to 20 years in prison if found guilty, under federal law. Another rioter who singled out and fought with an officer at the Capitol was recently sentenced to 10 years, marking the longest jail sentence imposed on any Capitol riot participant up to this point.
McAbee is also charged with another count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding police over confronting an officer who was seemingly trying to essentially stop McAbee as he targeted Wayte. That other officer, the D.C. department’s Carter Moore, expected amid the chaos that he would die, according to his mother. “Carter told me he thought for sure he was going to die,” Moore’s mother Stephanie Smith said to a local newspaper. As Moore and McAbee squared off, another rioter — Michael Lopatic — stepped in and began repeatedly punching Moore, which got the officer’s attention off McAbee. At that point, he violently engaged with Wayte once again.
As reported in The New York Times, Clayton Ray Mullins, who also helped drag Wayte into the crowd of violent rioters, was pulling on the officer as local law enforcement personnel were also attempting to essentially save their colleague. Mullins claims he was trying to somehow save Wayte from the brunt of the violence, a claim that obviously seems utterly ridiculous on its face. Wayte faced a serious of intense assaults once further in the middle of the crowd of rampaging rioters following the actions that McAbee and Mullins took. As the Times summarizes, rioters “ripped off his helmet; stripped him of his baton, cellphone and gas mask; sprayed him with Mace; kicked him; struck him with poles; and stomped on him” after McAbee pulled him towards the chaotic scene.
After McAbee and Wayte both fell down a series of stairs outside the Capitol while McAbee was perpetrating his assault, McAbee — who still held a position of employment as a police officer at the time of the riot — stayed atop the officer, pinning him to the ground, for nearly half a minute. McAbee was wearing patches while participating in the riot — one that said “Sheriff” and another associated with the Three Percenters, a far-right militia. The unconscious body of Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter and riot participant who died after losing consciousness, was nearby on the ground as McAbee, Lopatic, and other mob members pushed against police during a tense period late in the afternoon.
Judge denies Capitol riot defendant Ronald McAbee's request for release from pretrial jail. McAbee is accused of swinging at.. & dragging police officer.. and messaging associate that he "calls for secession"
Judge's order includes details about injuries of police officer ===> pic.twitter.com/AAjd9y9A0j
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 5, 2022
Image: Tyler Merbler/ Creative Commons
