Shot.
1,000 people have been charged for the Capitol riot. Here’s where their cases stand, NPR, March 25, 2023
More than two years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors have now charged more than 1,000 people in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
These hundreds of people encompass “the most wide-ranging investigation” in the history of the Justice Department. NPR has been tracking every case related to the attack as they move through the court system, from the initial arrest to sentencing.
How much work has this been for the federal government?The investigation has been a massive undertaking, both in its scope and cost. Every U.S. Attorney’s office has been involved, as well as every FBI field office. As part of the $1.7 trillion government spending package passed in December, $2.6 billion was allocated to the U.S. Attorneys, in part to support the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
In order to bring charges, the Justice Department is sifting through mountains of evidence and chasing down tips. The FBI says it has been reviewing almost four million files, including 30,000 video files. Those include police body-worn camera footage from five different law enforcement agencies, surveillance footage from the building, as well as the many videos on seized cell phones and posted online.
“For context, these files amount to over nine terabytes of information and would take at least 361 days to view continuously,” the FBI reported when it marked the attack’s second anniversary.
The sprawling investigation has already doubled the FBI’s domestic terrorism caseload, yet the Justice Department has indicated that it believes around 2,000 people were involved in the attack. In other words, the department may not even be halfway through its investigation.
Who are the 1,000 alleged rioters?The defendants—who came from nearly all 50 states—are a tough group to generalize. Most of them appear to be white men, though not entirely.
About 15% of the defendants have a background in the military or law enforcement. For context, about 7% of the U.S. population are military veterans. Police and sheriff patrol officers make up less than 1% of the population.
The difficulty in categorizing this group has caused some experts concern. One in four defendants are facing assault or some other violent charge, yet the vast majority of people facing charges—nearly 85% —do not have any known connection to extremist groups.
Chaser.
NYC agrees to pay $13M—or nearly $10K each—to protesters beaten, arrested in 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations, New York Post, July 21, 2023
New York City has agreed to pay more than $13 million—or nearly $10,000 each—to demonstrators who were arrested or beaten by cops during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
The proposed class-action settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, would be one of the most expensive payouts awarded in connection with a mass arrest lawsuit in history, according to experts.
The agreement, filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, would award most of the approximately 1,300 plaintiffs who were arrested or subjected to force by police about $10,000 each, according to their attorneys.
The lawsuit, filed against the city, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Dermot Shea, as well as other police officials and officers, argued that thousands of New Yorkers who “exercised their constitutional rights” were “corralled into places where they could not escape” during the widespread demonstrations.
The plaintiffs were then beaten “with batons, sprayed ... with pepper spray, and arrested … without lawful justification, all without fair warning,” lawyers argued in the court documents.
Plaintiffs marching against racially-targeted police brutality were allegedly “physically restrained” and put “in dangerously close quarters, all in the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic,” lawyers said, arguing the same tactics were not used during similarly sized protests of different issues, according to the complaint.
“It was so disorganized, but so intentional,” said Adama Sow, a plaintiff who claimed their group of marchers were cornered by police, placed in zip ties until their hands turned purple and held on a hot bus for hours.
The world went mad on May 25, 2020.
It’s our job to endure the madness. Survive.
Because if we do, those who benefited from the horror of the past three years will finally see retribution. Total retribution.
