An accused participant in the January 6 attack on the Capitol who allegedly spoke while on the premises about wanting to physically assault Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was then the House Speaker, has been arrested and could face 10 or more years in prison if eventually convicted.
Todd Branden Casey, a 53-year-old man from Colorado who investigators also allege spoke while at the Capitol of wishing he’d shown up armed, is now criminally charged with felony offenses including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Civil disorder starts out with up to five years in prison, while the charge of assaulting or resisting police, when specified that it occurred with factors like physical contact with the target, threatens eight years.
“Where’s Schiff? I’d like to beat his ass right in front of you. Nancy Pelosi too. Mitch McConnell – these traitors,” Casey said outside the Capitol, per prosecutors, who were citing bodycam footage from an officer on the scene. Casey’s time at the Capitol included what prosecutors alleged was direct, physical contact with multiple officers, and he’s also accused of having joined the waves of rioters who entered the Lower West Terrace tunnel, where brutal violence perpetrated by the crowd was seen. He was allegedly enthusiastic throughout the ordeal, sometimes barking evident directives at fellow members of the crowd, who promptly acted accordingly, according to prosecutors.
The specific police officers with whom Casey engaged in apparent physical altercations aren’t immediately clear, as the Justice Department identified these individuals simply by their initials in a statement of facts. Taken into custody August 30, Casey was arrested more than two and a half years after the Capitol riot first took place. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently posted another plea online for pardons for participants in the day’s events, glossing over the documented, physical violence — including against police — committed by many of these individuals. She commented as such after a Proud Boys defendant was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
