A Trump-supporting former police officer and Capitol rioter from Tennessee has been ordered to be held in jail until his trial, which will cover serious charges including assaulting police officers at the Capitol. The individual in question is Ronald Colton McAbee, who was employed by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee at the time of the violence in D.C. In one example of what McAbee actually did while at the Capitol, he can be seen on video “punching and grabbing at D.C. Police officers while wearing his sheriff’s department tactical gear” while “[another] D.C. Police officer is seen lying motionless at his feet,” a D.C.-area CBS affiliate has explained.
That CBS station adds that McAbee “appears relentless in his assault on MPD, punching, grabbing and grappling with officers[,] all the while shouting violent threats.” (MPD refers to officers with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.) Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who was handling the matter of whether McAbee would remain in custody ahead of further proceedings, observed that McAbee “appears to have acted deliberately when he fought against MPD officers who were attempting to protect the US Capitol and when he used physical force to pull an officer into the violent and angry mob,” adding that “[the] government’s video evidence captures multiple angles of the horrifying scene that unfolded that day.”
How did radical, even violent, extremism infiltrate the ranks of police departments across the country? https://t.co/4B1HXCIXAi
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 26, 2021
Sullivan added that “[watching] the video footage of these events unfold continues to elicit horror and sadness — this was, without a doubt, a crime that is unparalleled in our nation’s history.” People’s lives were on the line, and multiple individuals who were there that day did, in fact, die — and yet, former President Donald Trump and others continue to try and excuse what happened, pretending as though the whole thing was a logical consequence of the imaginary election fraud that has been falsely claimed to have been responsible for Joe Biden’s victory. The riot has also been claimed to not have been that bad at all, but as then-D.C. officer Michael Fanone put it, “This was an orchestrated event. Despite the fact that most of the people on the ground are buffoons, so what? There are 15,000 of them.”
Glenn Kirschner: It appears many individuals, up to and including former President Donald Trump, worked hard to obstruct an official congressional proceeding. https://t.co/npHboO46w0
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 26, 2021
McAbee is affiliated with the Three Percenters movement, which is another one of those far-right organizations like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys that perpetrate violence in the name of political ambition. Such individuals clearly find a home in Trump’s circles — besides their participation in the Capitol riot, members of the Proud Boys were also reported to be at a recent event featuring Trump in Florida. In a text message sent soon after January 6, McAbee wrote that he’d “shed blood for my country. By the hands of the swamp… I will shed more in the days to come. But I will not forget the Oath I swore years ago to protect the America I once knew.” This dangerous nonsense is what Trump and others in the GOP’s leadership continue to foster.
Take Trump seriously and deal with his actions accordingly. He and his allies are continuing to lie about the 2020 election and have made it a part of their platform for the upcoming elections.
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) December 26, 2021
