NEW DETAILS HAVE emerged about some of Donald Trump’s supporters who stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesday night.
More than 90 people have been arrested and police say more arrests are likely after anarchy broke out at the centre of US democracy two days ago.
A tattoo-chested man in a horned headdress, a middle-aged intruder with his foot on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, and a woman shot and killed by police are among scores of protesters who have since been identified.
60-year-old Richard Barnett from Gravette in northwest Arkansas was photographed leaning back in a chair with his left foot on the desk of House Democrat leader Pelosi.
Barnett, known locally for hosting the pro-gun Facebook group ’2A NWA STAND!!!’ told Arkansas news channel KFSM 5News that he ended up inside Pelosi’s office by accident.
“I didn’t break the doors. I was shoved in. I didn’t mean to be in there. Hell, I was looking for the bathroom,” he said.
But he added that he had every right to be in Pelosi’s office.
“My desk. I’m a taxpayer. I’m a patriot. It ain’t her desk. We loaned her that desk.”
Barnett also said that before leaving, he stole an envelope and left Pelosi a note calling her a “bitch”.
Meanwhile, Jake Angeli - a prominent supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory – was pictured wandering through the Capitol shirtless, sporting face paint and with a fur hat with buffalo horns.
He describes himself as a “digital soldier” of the movement that claims Trump is waging a secret war against a global cult of liberal Satan-worshipping pedophiles.
The 33-year-old presented himself as a “shamanist and consultant for the Trump supporters” when he was photographed by AFP at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona in November. He was wearing his distinctive headdress then too.
“We’re patriots on the front lines in Arizona who wish to take our positive energy to DC,” he wrote on the ultra-conservative social network Parler in December.
Social media users noted similarities between Angeli’s look and that of 1990s Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay, forcing the jazz-funk performer to assure fans that he wasn’t in Washington on Wednesday.
Also among the supporters was Ashli Babbitt, who was named by police as the woman shot at close range by a police officer as she tried to climb through a broken window in the hallway of Congress.
The 35-year-old from San Diego later died from her injuries. KUSI-TV quoted her husband as saying she had been a staunch Trump supporter and “a great patriot.”
Babbitt was a US Air Force veteran who described herself as a “libertarian” on one social media profile.
On Tuesday she tweeted: “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!”
Inside the Capitol building, 36-year-old Adam Johnson looked particularly pleased with his day’s efforts when he was photographed carrying Pelosi’s lectern in a Trump winter beanie hat smiling and waving at cameras.
Many on Twitter mistakenly believed the man’s name was Via Getty, after a photograph was posted alongside an image credit in text for the visual media company Getty images.
The father of five from Parrish, Florida was subsequently identified by local media.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2021
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