WASHINGTON—Some innocent observers, including two journalists, were improperly swept up in a group of 230 people arrested after self-described anti-capitalists began breaking windows in Washington on Inauguration Day, lawyers said.
The group was charged Saturday with felony rioting, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.
Protesters smashed the windows of an emergency vehicle as well as windows at a Starbucks and two banks and set fire to a limousine, court documents said. The total damage done by the anarchist group was over $100,000, court documents said.
City law says that if, in the course of a riot, a person is seriously injured or there is property damage of more than $5,000 “every person who willfully incited or urged others to engage in the riot” can be charged with felony rioting.
But on Sunday, Mark Goldstone, a lawyer representing about 50 of those arrested, said police “basically identified a location that had problems and arrested everyone in that location.” He said there were not 230 people engaged in conduct that merited a felony rioting charge and called the charges an overreach.
