A Georgia man accused this week of beating police with a crutch and stomping on an officer after he was down is one of five rioters facing a raft of felony charges for fighting with cops during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Jack Wade Whitton Jr., 30, a fencing contractor and CrossFit instructor from Locust Grove, Georgia, was the last of the five taken into custody when he was arrested Thursday.
Video released by the Justice Department shows multiple scenes of fighting between rioters and Capitol Police on the Capitol’s West Terrace.
As the crowd chants “Fight for Trump!” a man identified as Whitton reaches over police barricades with a crutch to jab at cops trying to protect the Capitol. Another video shows him punching an officer, then grabbing him and dragging him into the crowd.
One harrowing video, taken from an officer’s body camera, appears to show Whitton stomping on the officer from above.
Three officers were injured on the West Terrace steps, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
Whitton was named in an updated federal indictment along with Peter Francis Stager, 41, of Arkansas, Jeffrey Sabol, 51, of Colorado for using weapons — a flagpole and a baton, respectively — to engage in combat with officers from the Capitol Police and Washington’s Metropolitan Police, according to the federal indictment.
Michael Lopatic Sr., 57, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Clayton Ray Mullins of Benton, Kentucky, were also among the five named in the indictment. Lopatic is accused of “pummeling” one officer and pushing through the crowd to steal the body camera off a second. Mullins is accused of dragging an officer down the stairs into the crowd.
The five are all charged with multiple felonies. Whitton faces up to 20 years for charges including assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon; assaulting, resisting or impeding officers; civil disorder; acts of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or building and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly weapon.
