Federal prosecutors have charged a 50-year-old Arizona man with assaulting several police officers on the U.S. Capitol lawn during the breach of the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jacob L. Zerkle of Bowie was arrested March 15 in Tucson, Arizona, on seven federal counts, including charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; civil disorder; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; and four related offenses.
The officers were part of a group of about 20 members of a civil-disorder unit responding to the Lower West Terrace to provide backup to police protecting the Capitol’s tunnel entrance.
A man identified in court papers as “Officer C.W.” said he observed Zerkle start a physical altercation with two other police officers. He approached Zerkle and grabbed him by the green backpack he was wearing.
“The subject then threw several punches at Ofc. C.W.,” court records state. “Ofc. C.W. then pushed the subject away, then the subject charged Ofc. C.W. and rammed into him.”
“Officer C.B.” said Zerkle attacked him while members of the MPD’s Civil Disturbance Unit walked across the lawn. Zerkle pushed him in the chest at least two times, the complaint said.
Zerkle grabbed the baton of “Officer B.S.” and knocked off his body-worn camera, the complaint said.
Zerkle, who was interviewed at his home by FBI agents on Oct. 21, 2021, said he traveled to Washington to protest what he saw as a lack of election integrity in the 2020 presidential race.
“Zerkle stated that he did not attend former President [Donald] Trump’s speech because he went to the Capitol to protest, not to listen to speeches,” the criminal complaint said.
“Zerkle stated that he pushed into some police officers and that he probably did something dumb,” the complaint said. “Zerkle also said that he was shoved into the police and was trying to protect himself but did not intend to assault a police officer.”
Zerkle was expected to make an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather.
The arrest was the second this month related to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol.
Video shows a man, identified as Celentano, striding up behind “Officer K.E.” and plowing into the officer’s back with his shoulder, sending the officer flying over the barrier.
“The officer later recalled being ‘blind-sided’ from behind in a ‘football-type tackle,’” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement. “The officer, an Iraq war veteran, also recalled thinking, ‘I didn’t survive a war to go out like this.’”
Prosecutors allege Celentano “also engaged in several other physical altercations with uniformed law enforcement personnel on the grounds of the Capitol,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement.
Neighborhood security camera video circulated on Twitter shows FBI armored tactical vehicles rolling up to Celentano’s home in Broad Channel, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
Celentano was nicknamed #ChairGuy on the Sedition Hunters website because he had a folding chair affixed to his backpack.
More than 775 people have been arrested for crimes at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, including more than 245 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the U.S. Justice Department. It’s one of the most sweeping investigations ever conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
