Hundreds of rioters that have been arrested are awaiting trial or waiting for their sentencing for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. A newly released bodycam footage showed one insurrectionist frothing at the mouth as he confronts a police officer during the siege.
A federal judge made the bodycam footage showing insurrectionist Joseph Lino Padilla public after prosecutors included images from the video in their criminal complaint filed against Padilla back in February, according to Washington correspondent Scott MacFarlane. Padilla is a former sergeant of the Tennessee National Guard and has been accused of repeatedly assaulting a police officer during the insurrection, including throwing a flag pole at some of the officers. Padilla remains detained after a federal judge declined to release him back in May.
At the time, the Tennesseean reported that prosecutors for the government have argued that Padilla is too dangerous to be released ahead of his trial. The attorneys cited the social media posts celebrating the insurrection and the assaults made on the police officers who defended the Capitol. Dozens of officers were left severely injured from the riots, and five people were killed.
“You’re f***ing defending a machine that doesn’t even f***ing care about you,” Padilla is shown as telling the officer in the video. “But if you let us in there, that machine will be gone, and we will f***ing protect you. You’re being a moral coward. You are a moral coward. You know what you’re doing is wrong.”
Several members of the right-wing militia groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, have also been arrested and detained, with some choosing to cooperate with the feds following their guilty pleas. An attorney for one member of the Proud Boys is trying to question whether the official counting of Congress of electoral votes counts as an official proceeding.
The lawyer for Proud Boy Ethan Nordean, according to the Seattle Times, argued before the judge that the charges against Nordean and three other defendants were misplaced. The attorney also argued that the official counting of electoral votes does not count as an official proceeding.
The judge was not convinced by the argument, debunking the attorney’s claim saying that an official proceeding could be anything “where you have a presiding official gaveling in” both chambers of Congress.