The U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., has announced a guilty plea from a participant in the Capitol violence of early 2021 who reportedly made a series of internet searches shortly after joining the violence that suggested certain… actions on his part.
Defendant Thomas Andrew Casselman reportedly looked for the “statute of limitations for assault on a police officer,” “the definition of a domestic terrorist,” and the length of time that the cellphone company Verizon holds onto text messages amid a longer series of similar searches. He specifically pleaded guilty to a felony criminal charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding police, which precedent from other Capitol riot cases suggests could land Casselman with a prison sentence years in length.
At the actual Capitol, federal authorities’ account says that Casselman used a chemical irritant — pepper spray — against police officers outside the building just after riot participants first entered the building elsewhere and as the broader chaos raged. “At approximately 2:25 p.m., the police line began to fall, and rioters clashed with officers. Casselman then stepped toward the police and deployed a canister of oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray in close range of the officers,” a federal press release said. The spray hit several officers.
Pepper spray was one of a wide variety of weapons used by Capitol rioters against police that day, a list even including makeshift weapons in the form of office fixtures (like a lamp) evidently originating inside the Capitol that riot participants seem to have passed back outside of the building. Some of the crowd’s weapons originated with police, like commandeered chemical irritants meant for riot control.
And authorities recently announced criminal charges for one defendant accused of firing a gun during the chaos, though this individual did not aim the weapon at any particular target, instead shooting into the air from a spot on scaffolding associated with construction for the then-upcoming presidential inauguration, per the account provided by federal authorities.
