Two more insurrectionists arrested and another pleading guilty today for breaching the doors of the Capitol Building allowing entry for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. And these are just the ones I found using that there Google machine. But today’s selection of insurrectionists are the dregs.
First up, we have a John Emanuel Banuelos of Utah who was carrying a gun on Jan 6th during the insurrection and was later involved in a murder in July of 2021:
WASHINGTON — A man accused in the fatal stabbing of a 19-year-old in a Utah park last July told police he figured he was already on the FBI’s radar — for flashing a gun during the Capitol riot.
“I was in the D.C. riots. You can look me up, OK?” Salt Lake City police said John Emanuel Banuelos told them seven months ago, after he was arrested in Liberty Park after the July 4 killing. “I’m the one in the video with the gun right here,” he said, according to police, his description of the video appearing to match a viral Vice News footage that showed a man flashing a weapon in his waistband while outside the U.S. Capitol.
Online investigators whose work has contributed to the identification and arrest of multiple rioters told NBC News they first gave Banuelos' name to the FBI in February 2021.
Now, police records about the July 4 killing obtained by the NBC affiliate KSL in Utah and shared with NBC News may help solidify what citizen investigators say they told the FBI over a year ago: that Banuelos, 37, is the man seen with a gun strapped in his waistband in the middle of the crowd of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters rioting outside the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Salt Lake City police said Banuelos told them he "went inside" the Capitol, although online sleuths have not found evidence of him in the actual building. Banuelos told them that he "probably" had a warrant out from the FBI for his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.
“Man, should I just tell the FBI to come get me or what,” he asked, according to a police transcript, soon adding that he was “just playing around."
It’s unclear if officers believed everything they said Banuelos was telling them during their questioning about the fatal stabbing, as police records indicate he said a lot of things that didn’t make sense.
As KSL reported, Banuelos has been arrested at least twice since the July stabbing: Police say he assaulted a woman in August, and then hit a woman and interfered with an arrest in September.
But authorities credited his reported claims of self-defense in the stabbing. In an Aug. 5 letter from the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, an official wrote that the office was “unable to proceed” with the case against Banuelos at that time.
“This office would be more than happy to revisit this matter if further information is developed which more adequately supports the prosecution of said individual,” the letter stated. A spokesman for the Salt Lake County DA’s Office told KSL that safety is the office’s first priority, and that they file cases based on the evidence they have.
There is a lot they do not know about Banuelos. For one, he is supposedly homeless, but he obviously got some money to travel to D.C. for the Jan 6th insurrection. Also, Banuelos stabbed to death Christopher Thomas Senn during a dispute about some stolen money. Senn was killed by Banuelos in July of 2021, but as some have suggested, could that killing have been prevented if the feds picked up Banuelos?
What is obvious though is that Banuelos is a dangerous man.
Next up is the arrest of Vincent J. Gillespie, 60, of Athol, MA:
An Athol man was arrested Friday, accused of using a riot shield to attack police at the Jan. 6 insurrection as he yelled “traitor” and “treason” at officers guarding the U.S. Capitol.
Tips led FBI agents to the home of Vincent J. Gillespie, 60, where they arrested him without incident Friday morning, investigators said in a press release.
Gillespie is accused of taking a riot shield from police then using it to assault cops trying to keep rioters out of the Capitol ahead of President Joe Biden’s election confirmation.
He was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Worcester hours after his arrest. He faces charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, civil disorder, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, and related offenses, according to federal prosecutors…
“He struggled his way through the crowd, eventually maneuvering through the rioters to the line of police officers defending the Lower West Terrace’s exterior door,” prosecutors said in a press release. “At one point, he gained control of a police shield as he approached the officers. Gillespie used the shield to ram the law enforcement officers, continuing to scream ‘traitor’ and ‘treason’ at the police. He also grabbed a law enforcement officer by the arm and attempted to pull him into the crowd.”
I really, really, really hope that this asshole refuses a plea deal. If they do offer him a plea deal, I pray it is for years in prison for assaulting the police. Another insurrectionist who thinks those in blue are “traitors” for not helping to overturn the election.
And now, we have an insurrectionist who got another sweetheart plea deal, IMHO:
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Federal prosecutors are seeking five months imprisonment for a former Coronado resident who pleaded guilty to taking part in the breach of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan 6, 2021, according to sentencing documents filed Friday.
Jeffrey Alexander Smith, 34, is set to be sentenced Tuesday following his plea to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating and picketing in a capitol building.
The prosecution’s sentencing memorandum states that Smith and others moved iron benches that were placed in front of closed doors in the Capitol building. On the other side of the doors were a “mob of rioters” whom Smith was trying to let in, but three police officers intervened, the memorandum states.
Before the officers could move the benches back, prosecutors say another crowd of people started pushing towards the doors, “sandwiching the three officers between the crowd and the doors.” Prosecutors say Smith joined the crowd and when the doors were eventually opened, he “gave a victorious fist pump,” then directed rioters toward the third level of the Capitol, which houses the galleries for the Senate and House chambers.
Prosecutors say the crowd that entered “included violent members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were dressed in full battle gear like they were going to war.”
Initially, Smith was defiant and posted how proud he was of his actions on Jan 6th.
In text messages to others, officials say Smith wrote “I’m a Patriot,” “I stormed the capital,” and stated that he was taking part in the insurrection to send a message that Americans were not “going to take a fraudulent election” and “There is no way in hell I was going to drive 38 hours from San Diego and not walk right through the front of the (Capitol) building.”
But now that he got caught, well…
In their memorandum, his attorneys say Smith traveled from the San Diego area to Washington D.C. to hear former President Donald Trump speak, then made an “ill-advised decision to enter the Capitol Building” when “he saw hundreds, if not thousands, of others already inside and the doors to the Capitol Building open.”
The memo states Smith “deeply regrets his actions” and that custodial time “is unnecessary to prevent him from ever committing another crime.”
Given his actions, I think only 5 months in jail is too short and not justice for what he did.