(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department released updated statistics about the number of protestors arrested from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising, showing that 1,457 J6ers have been charged to date.
The DOJ’s stats indicated a major uptick in arrests through nearly the first half of this year. The DOJ charged 725 from January 2021 to January 2022; about 225 last year; and has already charged another 315 through nearly the first half of 2024.
The uptick in charges and arrests follows a letter from the “Sedition Hunters” to Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves—urging them to arrest thousands of additional J6 protestors before the 2024 election. The Sedition Hunters is a shadowy group of online sleuths that use controversial facial recognition technology to help the FBI track down Jan. 6 protestors.
“It appears that the department and the FBI are not on pace to arrest an alarmingly large percentage [of those] who committed crimes at the Capitol on January 6 but have not been charged yet,” the Sedition Hunters’ April letter said.
“These people have already committed political violence once, and for the more violent offenders to remain un-arrested and face no accountability is a concern to me because it’s an election year — and what’s to stop them from committing political violence again this year?” the letter said.
According to the letter, 3,900 people committing crimes at the Capitol on Jan. 6. That includes people who breached the Capitol and those who engaged in violence on the grounds, but not the people who were on the Capitol grounds—itself a crime—but otherwise didn’t violate any laws.
Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney Graves signaled that his office would continue arresting Jan. 6 protestors, but the Sedition Hunters criticized him for reducing the rate of arrests.
“About 626 people have been charged with assaulting law enforcement and media, or entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon,” Raw Story reported in April.
“Based on those numbers, the arrest rate for violent offenders would need to pick up the pace from about 16 per month to 26 per month in order to meet the deadline before the statute of limitations runs out on Jan. 6, 2026.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
