‘Very quick and obvious’ | Jury Convicts Thomas Webster of All Charges in Capitol Riot Case

WASHINGTON — The jury convicted a former New York police officer on six counts Monday and found he was the assailant when he attacked a DC police officer outside the US Capitol building on Jan. 6.

Thomas Webster, a veteran of the Marine Corps and a member of the New York City police department for 20 years, showed little reaction when the jury foreman read out the guilty verdicts on each of the six counts against him. They include five felony charges, the most serious of which is assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon. Another Capitol riot defendant who pleaded guilty to the same charge, Robert Palmer, was sentenced in December to 63 months in prison.

Jurors heard four days of testimony last week and viewed footage from multiple angles showing Webster attacking DC police officer Noah Rathbun on January 6. Webster’s attorney, James E. Monroe, argued that the veteran police officer was defending himself against “rogue police” and that Rathbun was responsible for instigating the assault.

Yet it took jurors just two hours on Monday to reject that defense. After the verdict, a juror described the decision as “very easy and quick”. Another said that he did not find Webster’s self-defense theory convincing, particularly his contention that contact with the open palm of Rathbun’s left hand made to Webster’s face amounted to a “punch.”

Outside court Monday, jurors told the reporter the decision was “very quick and obvious” and that they did not find Webster’s self-defense theory convincing.

US District Judge Amit P. Mehta allowed Webster to return to his home in upstate New York while he awaits sentencing, which is set for Sept. 2. He will remain under GPS monitoring and 24-hour home confinement until then. Although prosecutors pressed for his arrest, Mehta said Webster’s years of service in the Marine Corps and the NYPD, and the fact that he had complied with all release conditions thus far, concerned him. little that Webster appeared for sentencing.

Monroe said the verdict was disappointing but not a surprise. She had argued unsuccessfully before the trial for a change of venue, and said outside court Monday that she believed the trauma of Jan. 6 kept jurors from being open-minded. Monroe said they were still weighing whether to appeal the verdict.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates soon.

Webster took the stand in his own defense Thursday morning at his trial on multiple charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, including felony civil disorder and assaulting police with a dangerous weapon.

Jurors heard two days of testimony earlier in the week from officers from the US Capitol and the DC Metropolitan Police, who spoke about being outnumbered and overwhelmed by the pro-Trump crowd on January 6. . DC Police Officer Noah Rathbun testified that he was assigned to the department’s office mountain bike unit, but was deployed along with many others to the Capitol to assist the beleaguered Capitol Police that day. He was standing along the police perimeter near the opening stage on the west side of the Capitol when Webster pushed through the crowd and began berating police and pushing a bicycle parking barrier against them.

Rathbun eventually ended up on the ground after Webster tackled him and tried to rip off his helmet and gas mask. He testified that at the time he feared for his safety.

“I couldn’t see any other officers in the area, so I was scared,” Rathbun said.

Webster’s account of Thursday’s events was markedly different. After reviewing his background as an officer in the US Navy and the NYPD for 20 years, Webster told the jury that he traveled to DC on January 6 as a supporter of former President Donald Trump in hopes of convincing told Congress to “take another look” at the 2020 election. He eventually made his way to the US Capitol, where, he said, he saw children and families crying and an elderly couple walking away with blood on their faces. of his wife. He claimed that was what “annoyed” him and led him to push through the massive crowd to the front, where police were maintaining a tentative perimeter of bike racks.

Over the course of that trip to the front, which took more than 20 minutes and involved scaling a waist-high wall at one point, Webster said he set three rules for himself. He would leave if he saw a restricted area sign, if he heard an announcement, or if an officer told him to leave. Assistant US Attorney Katherine Nielsen would later bring up those self-proclaimed rules during cross-examination, causing Webster to admit that he had seen flashbulb explosions and smelled tear gas as he walked to the front.

Webster testified that he is “programmed” to help when he sees people get hurt, and that explains his going to the front lines. However, when he arrived, Rathbun’s body camera video shows that Webster was already furious and immediately began yelling at the officers and pushing the metal bike racks against him. During cross-examination, Nielsen noted that Webster began hitting officers and bike racks with a metal flagpole he was carrying within 20 seconds of reaching the front line.

Webster explained that by saying that Rathbun had made a “go ahead” hand gesture inviting him to cross the barrier and fight him. Rathbun’s body camera video doesn’t show the gesture, but Webster’s attorney, James E. Monroe, claimed that a blurry cellphone video taken from someone upstairs on Lower West Terrace does show it. Webster also accused Rathbun, who served as a member of the US Marine Corps before joining the DC Police Department, of taking one look at the Marine Corps flag he was carrying and deciding to fight him. .

When questioned by Monroe, Webster testified that he had served many crowd control events during his 20 years as a housing officer in New York City and later during his time with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s security detail. Webster said he had been trained in de-escalation techniques and how not to respond to taunts from protesters, and that he thought Rathbun had not used them. He repeatedly referred to Rathbun as a “rogue cop” and claimed that he had incited the entire confrontation.

“You have to de-escalate,” Webster said. “I gave him all the answers. That flag… is a member of the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps, we treat members of the Navy like our mothers. If he had said, hey man, I’m a member of the Marine Corps, I would have hugged him.”

Webster’s account of Rathbun’s contact with his face also differed greatly from what the jury had heard and seen earlier in the week. Rathbun’s body camera footage shows that his left hand made brief open palm contact with the right side of Webster’s face as Webster pushed the rack. Webster variously described that contact as a “rape,” like “being hit by a hammer,” and “like a freight train.” He claimed to have thought that he might have suffered a concussion.

Later, in a combative back-and-forth with Nielsen, Webster identified that the only visible mark on his face after the altercation was a cut on his lower left lip, despite the force he claimed from Rathbun’s punch. Webster claimed Rathbun punched him in the jaw after he tackled the DC police officer to the ground though, like other claims he made Thursday, no video was entered in the case showing this.

No stranger to the witness stand thanks to his two decades as a New York City police officer, Webster seemed relaxed as he testified. He spoke to the jury, rather than his attorney, when asked questions, and at times he was almost folksy. Although his service in the Marine Corps lasted four years in the mid-1980s, much less than the 20 years he spent as a police officer, he found opportunities to mention it in most of his answers, referring to himself on multiple occasions as a “military boy”, a “proud marine” and “just a jarhead”.

Webster’s testimony was also often inconsistent. He at first described the flagpole he had brought to the Capitol as “super lightweight.” His attorney repeatedly referred to him as hollow aluminum. But once Rathbun wrested control, Webster said he spooked the pole.

“I was worried about what I was going to do with that pole,” Webster said.

Webster also played up his physicality at some points and downplayed it at others. He said he pushed the bike rack at officers to show them it could be easily pushed through “like a farm gate” and, after noting that he had played sports when he was younger, said he approached Rathbun “like an old man”. school football player.” But when questioned by Nielsen, he suggested the officer had just fallen and repeatedly claimed to have been afraid of the much smaller man.

Webster’s comfort as he testified and the discipline of the message proved frustrating for Nielsen, who could not get him to admit that he had used his flagpole as a weapon, even though the video clearly showed him swinging it repeatedly at Rathbun and a police officer. USCP. Webster’s evasive responses eventually prompted a reprimand from the judge, who told him to answer the questions presented to him and have Nielsen pose them more directly.

Testimony ended for the day with cross-examination still unfinished. After jurors left the courtroom, a visibly frustrated US District Judge Amit P. Mehta told both sides that he hoped to return on Friday and do things “the right way.” In addition to redirecting questions to Webster, Monroe was expected to call three character witnesses on behalf of his client before resting his case.

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