Rep. Troy Nehls Demands Bodycam Video of Assault of Jan. 6 Detainee

Prominent defense attorney Joseph McBride welcomes Mr. Nehls’s commitment to seek a U.S. House hearing if Jan. 6 detainee civil rights abuses are documented.

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) questions the director of the U.S. Marshals Service about the 2022 assault of Jan. 6 detainee Ronald Colton McAbee (pictured at rear) during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 14, 2024. Emily Matthews/U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) on Feb. 14 demanded that the director of the U.S. Marshals Service release body-worn camera video of the September 2022 assault of Jan. 6 detainee Ronald Colton McAbee in the District of Columbia jail.

In a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, Mr. Nehls told U.S. Marshals Service Director Ronald Davis he wasn’t asking, but demanding the body-worn camera video from Lt. Crystal Lancaster from the Sept. 5, 2022, incident.

“I’m going to make it my personal mission, my personal mission, to use every subpoena power that I can get from this committee to get this footage,” Mr. Nehls said during the hearing. “I apologized to this gentleman. I apologized to his wife, Sarah, for having to go through this with no answers or help.

“So can I get a commitment from you that we’re going to look into this, I have your assurance and we’re going to look into this? [I'll] get this video footage because if not, go to DOJ, I don’t care, I have to go to whoever,” Nehls said. “Because I think we have a problem here. And it seems like it’s being covered up.”

Mr. McAbee, who at the time had not faced trial on a range of Jan. 6 charges in U.S. District Court in Washington, was walking toward a medical cart in the pod that houses Jan. 6 detainees and inmates.

Ms. Lancaster—who was suspended after the incident and has since been fired—shouted at Mr. McAbee to put on a COVID-19 mask. He did not comply and kept walking to retrieve his medication from the cart. According to eyewitness accounts, after Mr. McAbee took his medication, Ms. Lancaster sprayed him with oleoresin capsicum (OC), a harsh chemical irritant.

As he was writhing on the floor in pain, Mr. McAbee’s hands were cuffed behind his back by a jail guard. Ms. Lancaster then fired a second blast of OC spray into Mr. McAbee’s face at point-blank range, several witnesses said.

Several other detainees, including Ryan Nichols and Bart Shively, were sprayed with OC, handcuffed, and placed in isolation pods, witnesses told family members.

Mr. Davis said he was not familiar with Mr. McAbee’s case but would assign staff to work with Mr. Nehls’s office on finding the video.

“If I just may start by saying that I share your priority to make sure that those that are in our custody are treated humanely and within federal standards, and if there is misconduct, we are committed to investigating all allegations of misconduct,” Mr. Davis said. “I will commit my team to work with yours to see how we can be responsive to your request.”

Mr. Nehls told The Epoch Times that if the body-worn camera video has not been turned over within a week, he will approach Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)—chairman of the House Judiciary Committee—about getting a subpoena for it.

“If I’m sitting here a week and we don’t have any answers, then I’m gonna say to Jim Jordan, ‘We’ve got to subpoena it,’” Mr. Nehls said in an interview. “I mean, I will get so far up [Mr. Davis’s] [expletive] that he’s not going to want that.”

Mr. McAbee’s wife, Sarah, said she is hopeful Mr. Nehls’s intervention will dislodge the video that she said would show what happened that day in the DC jail.

“He asked the hard questions and wasn’t allowing the director to just walk it back and say, ‘You know, I’m not aware of this’ or ‘I don’t know about this,’” Ms. McAbee told The Epoch Times in an interview. “At the very end he said, ‘I’m making it my personal mission. I’m not asking, I am demanding that you look into this, and give us the answers that we need.’”

Ronald "Colt" McAbee with his No. 1 neighborhood fan. The former sheriff's deputy was denied bail for the second time on Sept. 3, 2022. Sarah McAbee/Special to The Epoch Times

Ms. McAbee said the Feb. 14 congressional hearing could help bring attention to other detainees who suffered abuse at the DC facility.

“I hope that it sheds light on the other assaults that have happened as well,” she said. “I hope that this will be the catalyst for the other people that have been assaulted so they can get their investigations open with the U.S. Marshals and the jail.”

Marshals Investigation

In the fall of 2022, Ms. McAbee said the U.S. Marshals told her they had opened an investigation into the spraying incident and how Mr. McAbee was treated, but there was no followup or conclusion. The matter was turned over to an outside agency to investigate, she said.

Mr. Nehls said that in addition to obtaining Ms. Lancaster’s body-worn camera footage, he would like to obtain the results of the Marshals’ investigation.

“I hope they'd be willing to share that,” he said. “It should be public information. I mean, why not? If my deputies did something wrong in use of force, we released everything.”

From 2012 to December 2020, Mr. Nehls was sheriff of Fort Bend County, Texas, and oversaw a 1,800-bed jail. Prior to that, he was a precinct constable in Fort Bend County.

Mr. Nehls said depending what the video from Ms. Lancaster shows, he would consider asking that the House Judiciary Committee hold a public hearing on the treatment of Jan. 6 detainees and possible civil rights violations.

Mr. Nehls said that unless Mr. McAbee was flailing his arms and acting in a threatening manner that day in September 2022, OC spray should never have been used on him based on the “use of force continuum.”

“As I continue to work on this and see where we’re at with this video, if this video shows any type of civil rights violation, I think we should [hold a hearing],” he said. “I'll get with Chairman Jordan on this.”

That idea was welcome news to Jan. 6 defense attorney Joseph D. McBride, who wrote a 2021 report on the torture and abuse of detainees in the jail.

“When you have a lawyer who gets up on the stand, and says, ‘Look, this is the pattern of constitutional and human rights violations that have been happening all along,’” Mr. McBride told The Epoch Times. “Here’s the paperwork, here are the motions, here are the grievances and the complaints to back it up.

“And on top of that, ‘Here, talk to my client. This one will testify, that one will testify, this one will testify,’” Mr. McBride said. “That is the only way that anything gets done.”

Richard 'Bigo' Barnett poses for photos in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 6, 2021. He was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison in May 2023. U.S. Department of Justice/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Mr. McBride represented Richard M. “Bigo” Barnett, 63, of Gravette, Arkansas, who described being picked up by DC jail guards and driven head first into the concrete. Mr. Barnett was featured in journalist Tucker Carlson’s 2021 documentary, “Patriot Purge.”

During his trial on Jan. 6 charges, Mr. Barnett told U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper he has memory problems and struggled to recall case details due to brain injuries suffered as a firefighter and during his detention in the DC jail.

“I’ve made mistakes. I have made mistakes. And I regret those mistakes,“ Mr. Barnett said. ”I’ve gotten confused in my testimony. I went through hell up there. The officers went through hell up there. It was a horrible, horrible day.”

In October 2021, due to allegations of mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendant Christopher Worrell, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held two top DC Department of Corrections officials in civil contempt of court. That led to a surprise inspection of the jail’s Central Treatment Facility (CTF) and Central Detention Facility (CDF) by U.S. Marshals.

Marshals were initially denied entry into the Central Treatment Facility. While they inspected the nearby Central Detention Facility, “prison guards stormed into CTF” where they were “forced to bleach the floors, paint walls, showers, doors, and anything else in deplorable condition,” according to a Habeas corpus petition filed in the case of detainee Ryan T. Nichols, 33, of Rowlett, Texas.

In its subsequent report, the Marshals noted “the smell of urine and feces was overpowering in many locations. The water in many of the cells had been shut off for days, inhibiting detainees from drinking water, washing hands, or flushing toilets. DOC staff confirmed to inspectors that water to cells is routinely shut off for punitive reasons,” according to the Habeas corpus petition.

U.S. Marine veteran Ryan Taylor Nichols (right) rescues children in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Imelda in Beaumont, Texas, in September 2019. Some areas received 43 inches of rain from Imelda. Courtesy of Joseph D. McBride

“Detainees had observable injuries with no corresponding medical or incident reports available to inspectors,” the court filing said. “DOC staff were observed antagonizing detainees. DOC staff were observed not following COVID-19 mitigation protocols. Several DOC staff were observed directing detainees to not cooperate with USMS inspectors.”

Mr. Nichols and detainee Robert Morss wrote a public letter signed by 36 Jan. 6 detainees that “graphically describes the conditions of confinement as an unsanitary environment unfit for human habitation, including deprivation of basic necessities like food, water, and medical care,” the Habeas corpus petition said. “The cells are covered with mold and rust, and infested with rodents, pests, and vermin.”

As a result of the quick cleanup at the CTF, Jan. 6 detainees were left in the facility. The Marshals ordered some 400 inmates in the CDF be moved to a variety of federal prisons because that facility “miserably failed” its snap inspection.

“They took a 60-year-old man at the time with no criminal record and they piled drived him into the floor because of him singing the national anthem,” Mr. McBride said. “I mean, that place, that’s what’s going on there. It is a gulag. It should not exist. We should not do this to enemy combatants, nevermind American citizens.”

Mr. McBride challenged the GOP-led Judiciary Committee to follow through and hold televised hearings on the torture and abuse of Jan. 6 detainees and inmates.

“It’s got to happen,” Mr. McBride told The Epoch Times. “And anybody who doesn’t ask for it at this point is just grandstanding.”

Patricia Tolson contributed to this article