NC man arrested for role in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol violence. Here’s what feds say he did.
A 35-year-old man from the North Carolina mountains was arrested Friday after video showed him pushing “with great effort” against police during the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said.
Brevard resident Alan Michael St. Onge faces a felony charge of civil disorder and misdemeanor counts of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, according to a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia.
St. Onge made his initial court appearance Friday in the Charlotte-based Western District of North Carolina, prosecutors said. St. Onge didn’t return a phone message from The Charlotte Observer Saturday.
He is accused in court documents of helping breach a police barricade on the east plaza of the U.S. Capitol and repeatedly pushing “with great effort” against a police line in an entrance to the U.S. Capitol building known as the Lower West Terrace tunnel.
Minutes before St. Onge entered the tunnel, closed-circuit television footage showed another crowd member handing him a stolen U.S. Capitol Police riot shield as St. Onge stood near the mouth of the tunnel, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a news release.
“He held that shield for a moment and then set it down in the mouth of the tunnel,” according to the release.
St. Onge left the tunnel about a minute later, only to return and join the shoving of police, prosecutors said.
Video shows him all around the U.S. Capitol grounds that day, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election,” prosecutors said in the news release.
The FBI Charlotte and Washington field offices are investigating the case with help from the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department, according to the news release.
At least 29 North Carolinians have been federally charged in connection with the violence, during which thousands of supporters of Donald Trump attacked the Capitol to stop the transfer of presidential power.
At least seven people were killed and 140 police officers hurt.
Across all 50 states, at least 1,000 people have been arrested, including nearly 350 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, prosecutors said in Friday’s news release.
