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skateofministry · 4 years ago

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Meet the Texans charged in the Capitol riot

Elizabeth Rose Williams, a Hill Country lifestyle coach specializing in essential oils and conscious food sourcing, believed she was “destined to do great things, and be an influencer to leaders.” FBI agents say she also appeared on Facebook posts and grainy surveillance video amid the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, wandering through the Crypt and Senate gallery with her North Carolina boyfriend, a QAnon devotee who ran a far-right boot camp.

Her boyfriend posted that the couple was hit with loud flash grenades and “hard core tear gassed before the breach of the Capitol,” according to the FBI. Another message declared the pair were, “Storming the Capitol. Pray for us all.”

Williams, 31, of Kerrville, is among 44 Texans charged thus far in the Jan. 6 riots with breaking past barricades, battling police and surging through the iconic neoclassical building as Congress worked to seal Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

READ ALSO: ‘You can’t stop us’: FBI timeline depicts roles Texans played in Capitol siege

Texas is home to the greatest number of people accused in the frenetic melee, based on Justice Department filings and data from the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. The Texas defendants include military veterans, real estate agents, ex cons, a mortgage broker, a cop, a florist and an actor with a bit part on “Friday Night Lights.”

They traveled with friends and cousins. They were fathers and sons, lovers and loners. A handful had ties to far-right groups, including the Proud Boys and Three Percenters, officials said. But the majority were just avid supporters of former President Donald Trump, rioting over an election they thought was being stolen from its rightful victor.

Nearly five months after the siege at the so-called “Temple of Democracy,” more than three new arrests occur daily, on average. That number includes a 38-year-old financial adviser from Katy who was arrested by the FBI Tuesday on charges he faced off against an officer in riot gear inside the Capitol. Justice officials estimate that more than 800 people entered the Capitol building, and say they are undertaking one of the largest criminal probes in U.S. history 

Some, like Williams and her boyfriend, were merely trespassing at the Capitol, according to charges. Others, officials said, wielded all manner of weapons — tomahawks, plastic handcuffs, pepper spray, a desk drawer, a skateboard, a Trump flag and a firecracker — and sustained battle wounds as they pushed into the building.

The Texans awaiting federal prosecution in D.C. were identified in videos, wanted fliers and social media posts with help from their ex-wives, children, coworkers, former schoolmates and fellow little league parents. Their texts, social media boasts and GPS data also played a key role in placing them at a vast crime scene rife with amateur photographers and videographers.

Gearing up for battle

The Texans arrested so far were present every step of the way as the historic day unfolded. The following account is based on FBI evidence and testimony linking Texas defendants to conduct during the hours of the insurrection. The Houston Chronicle attempted to contact all defendants or their defense lawyers, a handful of whom responded. They are presumed innocent unless the allegations are proven.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Katy man shown facing off with Capitol police officer on Jan. 6, officials say

They journeyed by car and commercial aircraft, responding to the president’s 11th-hour appeal for help “stopping” his electoral loss. Jason Hyland Lee, a Frisco real estate agent, chartered a jet he dubbed the “Patriot flight.” He was joined by at least two passengers also accused of occupying the Capitol. Ryan Nichols, a former U.S. Marine from Longview, texted a buddy on Jan. 3 as he and his father were preparing a truck for the trip, explaining they had built a gun container because, “I have intel that Washington will be a war zone.”

Jason Hyland, of Frisco, Texas, stands at the far right of this photo posted on Twitter. Hyland chartered the so-called “Patriot flight” to take himself, Jenna Ryan and Katherine Scwabb to Washington, D.C., according to charging documents.

“Big possibility that actual battle goes down,” Nichols continued in texts to Alex Harkrider, a fellow Marine veteran from Carthage, who worked with Nichols in a storm rescue group.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Harkrider responded. Attorney Kira Anne West has said Harkrider has mental health problems as a result of his active duty trauma suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The president asked people to come and show their support,” Christopher Grider, co-owner of boutique vineyard south of Waco, told his local CBS affiliate. “ I feel like it’s the least that we can do. It’s kind of why I came from central Texas and went all the way to D.C.”

‘Not a peaceful protest’

Following Trump’s “Stop the Steal” speech that brisk Wednesday, Grady Owens, a college music student, came up against a wall of 33 D.C. Metro Police officers on the west lawn of the Capitol. Body cam footage shows a scruffy-faced man in a stocking cap — identified as 21-year-old Owens — bashing a cop on the head with a “White Fang” skateboard. Footage also captured his father, Jason Owens, of Blanco, nearby shoving another cop with enough force that the officer’s head snapped backwards.

Grady Owens is seen in body camera footage hitting a police officer with a skateboard, according to charging documents.

Daniel Caldwell, a former Marine employed at Texas Instruments, bragged that he sprayed some 15 officers with an orange mist as they were trying to prevent rioters from accessing the steps to the Capitol. “That’s when they shot me with that big cannon with rubber bullets,” the 49-year-old Dallas area man says in a YouTube video found by an internet sleuth and published by ProPublica,

Caldwell’s lawyer, John Hunter Smith, said his client never entered Capitol building.

“I was up there pushing through the barricades with about a hundred other patriots when they started beating my husband with billy clubs,” wrote Jalise Middleton, 50, a health care executive from Forestburg, in a Facebook post.

“The tear gas was easy to push through and still see,” she said. “It was windy so scouts in the scaffolding would holler take cover, we would cover our face, count to 10, and go again.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: League City classmates identify 2 fellow alums as Capitol rioters

Luke Coffee, who played a customer at the gritty “Landing Strip” on season five of “Friday Night Lights,” wielded a crutch as he approached the officers protecting the building’s perimeter. Elsewhere in the mayhem, Shane Jenkins, 43, a roofer and oil worker from Houston, javelined a flagpole at officers holding the line at the lower west terrace. The man with “MAMA TRIED” tattooed across his neck, who’d just finished a jail stint, proceeded to smash a window with a tomahawk.

David Judd, from Carrollton, 35, hurled what looked to be a lit firecracker. And Christian Cortez from Seabrook, was reported to officials by former League City classmates, after video caught him hollering a string of profanities and “Oath breakers” at police spraying the insurgents with mace while fellow officers tried to yank the Capitol doors shut.

Kevin Blakely, 55, of McKinney, was photographed on the Capitol steps near Jake Angeli — the shirtless QAnon shaman with face paint and animal horns — also made his way into the building.

Pressed tight in the crowd was Wilmar Montano Alvarado, 37, owner of Betty’s Bakery and Restaurant in Pasadena. Montano was knocked in the head by an airborne speaker as he joined a crowd pushing against a police line in a tunnel entrance.

Montano had spent his boyhood in war torn El Salvador, and he told Fox 26 he’d cast his first ballot as a U.S. citizen for Trump. He believed the president’s false claims of election fraud, a phenomenon he was familiar with since youth.

“I went through the civil war and the election system was very, very bad,” he said in the interview.

Sean Watson, a 49-year-old medical technician from the tiny far west Texas town of Alpine texted, “I was one of the people that helped storm the capitol building and smash out the windows. We made history today. Proudest day of my life!”

Armed with a crowbar, Nichols, the East Texas ex-Marine, peered down at the throng from the ledge of a broken window and offered the equivalent of orders to the amped up foot soldiers. “If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon,” Nichols bellowed into a bullhorn, “This is the second revolution right here folks … This is not a peaceful protest.”

“We’re in,” wrote Ryan Nichols of Longview, Texas, in a post on Facebook from outside the Capitol.

Death and destruction

Samuel Montoya from San Marcos was among many Texans who tried to document the day as they lived it. Montoya, a 36-year-old staffer at Alex Jones’ conspiracy group Infowars, captured firsthand what he called the “execution” of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force vet who was shot by police as she tried to vault through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby. Grider, the vintner, said he saw Babbitt take a bullet to the chest and snapped a picture of officers carrying her away in their arms.

Surveillance video showed Midlanders Jenny Cudd and Eliel Rosa touring the building, including the Rotunda, Statuary Hall and the House Chamber. Cudd wore a Trump flag like a cape.

More from Gabrielle Banks: ‘I finally feel right in my body’: Houston kids confront anti-trans legislation that targets them

Others hammered on the door to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office for hours while her staff hid under tables in the dark. Eventually they broke in and raided it. Treniss Jewel Evans III, a 46-year-old Canyon Lake man, partook of the party atmosphere: A witness heard he’d been tossing back shots of Fireball whiskey in the San Francisco Democrat’s office.

One among thousands

At least one Texan perused the floor of the Senate. Larry Rendall Brock, Jr., a decorated Air Force veteran from Grapevine, was photographed in the well of the Senate wearing a helmet and body armor carrying zip tie handcuffs.

In Facebook posts, Brock explained he’d worn the protective gear for “the civil war that is coming.” A Justice Department prosecutor said Brock intended to take hostages and possibly harm elected officials if the chamber was not already cleared. Brock had posted at some point that day, “Men with guns need to shoot their way in.” Brock’s attorney argued against that assertion in court: “He came to D.C. unarmed … It’s all talk.”

Brock, who federal officials say backed radical militia groups the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, was just one amid a roiling swarm of thousands that day.

Officials have arrested 443 people in 44 states and D.C. in connection with the breach, according to GWU data . Tipsters have sent more than 270,000 digital tips to the FBI and agents are seeking help identifying scores of additional participants captured in photos and videos. A perimeter fence encircling the Capitol remains in place while officials await security improvements from Congress. 

Director Christopher Wray said in Senate testimony that the FBI is “committed to seeing this through no matter how many people it takes or how long or the resources we need to get it done.” Hundreds of defendants will be prosecuted in the months and years to come at a federal courthouse less than half a mile from the site of the pandemonium.

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thewallvegas-blog · 6 years ago

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Soldiers attend Esports gamer ‘Boot Camp’ through Exchange partnership

New Post has been published on http://www.thewall.vegas/2019/07/09/soldiers-attend-esports-gamer-boot-camp-through-exchange-partnership/

Soldiers attend Esports gamer ‘Boot Camp’ through Exchange partnership

Two weeks after professional gamers visited Fort Bliss to see how Soldiers train and live, the tables were turned when 15 Soldiers visited Complexity Gaming headquarters at the GameStop Performance Center in Frisco, Texas, on June 28 to experience the life of a professional esports gamer. (Photo: Courtesy photo/ […]

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FRISCO, Texas – U.S. Soldiers come from all walks of life and are stationed all around the world, but there’s one thing they almost all share in common: gaming.

“It’s amazing. It’s like a gamer’s dream,” said Pvt. Carlos Silva of Complexity’s brand new facility.

The event is part of a partnership between the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, U.S. Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) Family & MWR Programs, and Complexity Gaming, which are bringing esports tournaments to installations around the world.

“For me, gaming has always been a stress reliever. When you go to work, being in the Army, you do 16-hour workdays, 18-hour workdays,” said Silva, who is stationed at Wheeler Army Air Field in Hawaii. “Gaming helps you relieve stress and helps train your mind. It requires a lot of hand-eye coordination [and quick] reaction time.”

Esports has become a focus of Army Entertainment, where Family & MWR leaders recently created an Army esports program. This program allows for Soldiers to compete in nationwide tournaments, which build relevant programming and boost morale.

“Gaming is great for cognitive skills, decision-making and teamwork,” said Col. Collin Fortier, the Exchange’s military community liaison. “The skills needed in gaming are a good blend of what the Army is looking for in Soldiers.”

Soldiers around the world submitted applications for the chance to participate in the esports program through Family & MWR’s Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers (BOSS) initiative. MSI Computer Corp., a presenting partner with the Exchange and Family & MWR, sponsors the BOSS’ Soldier Esports Showdown program that allowed the Soldiers to come to Frisco.

While at Complexity headquarters, the Soldiers played competitive assessment games that measured speed, decision making, dexterity, spatial recognition and audio-visual skills. They also had an opportunity to play against professional gamers.

“It goes to show how much we all have in common, whether it’s sports, esports, military,” said Specialist Joshua Velazquez, also stationed at Wheeler Army Air Field. “They all require a lot of mental endurance and certain physical attributes. I didn’t realize how similar they were before I got here. [It’s] a lot of similar training for the mind.”

More Soldier Esports Showdown events will take place at the BOSS Symposium in Indianapolis in July and at Fort Sill, Okla., in September.

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