WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter built a giant pro-Trump billboard and used it as a battering ram against police officers during a crowd of Trump supporters, federal authorities said. Attack on the US Capitol on January 6 was arrested on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Newcomb, 41, of Polk, Ohio faces a range of charges, including obstructing law enforcement during a civil disturbance and assaulting, resisting or obstructing federal officers while using or carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon. The FBI says he later bragged about his work on X.
“I went on Jan. 6 to peacefully protest in the loudest way possible: In a custom-made aluminum wagon with a 13-foot-by-10-foot sign,” Newcomb said in the now-deleted X profile in 2023, FBI prosecutors said. “I spent 700 dollars for it. Because bullets are expensive, I keep my identity a secret.”
On January 6, there were several other defendants accused by using sign — “Trump 2020 Keep America Great” in all caps. – as battering ram during the attack.
“I went up to the Capitol, but I was blocked by poles, and the guys around came and picked it up. [the sign] proceed to throw it at the police,” Newcomb said, according to the FBI.
According to the FBI, Newcomb also wrote that “one of the protesters found the sign[] and place it in the Capitol. (I wasn’t).
The FBI says they watched surveillance footage showing Newcombe “moving the sign around Constitution Avenue, NW and other areas near the ‘Stop The Stealing’ rally near the White House” and “arriving on the steps of Newcombe with other protesters.” helping move a giant metal-framed “TRUMP” sign from the southwest portion of the West Plaza crowd toward the center of the crowd.”
“The frame of the metal sign was about eight feet high and ten feet wide, welded together with screws and supported by large wheels about the height of a man’s head. Protesters cheered the arrival of the sign and much of the crowd helped move the sign closer to the police line,” the FBI said.
Newcomb and other rioters “then began pushing the sign on the trail to knock it into the police line,” then “fell down as they began to climb the steps of the plaza” and then “got back up and grabbed the sign again. The crowd continued to push the sign forward,” the FBI said.
As police officers “struggled to remove the threat posed by the sign,” Newcomb “stepped back and at one point stepped on the protesters’ backs to support the protesters who continued to push the sign toward police lines,” Newcomb said. “As they pointed out to the police, the size of the frame could have easily knocked it over and the sharp edges and corners could have easily caused cuts or lacerations,” they said.
Last week, Trump called for January 6.love day” and falsely claimed to have supporters they were unarmed. Most of the rioters they were armed with various weapons, incl firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, bear spray and even explosive devices During the siege at the Capitol that left more than 140 officers wounded and several dead.
“There were no weapons there. We had no weapons. Others had guns, but we didn’t. When I say we, these are the people who went down – it was a small percentage of the total that no one saw and no one, no one showed. But it was a day of love,” he said.
A Trump supporter who recently assaulted police said before his sentencing that he “deceived“With the former president’s lies about the 2020 elections.
More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the attack, and prosecutors have brought more than 1,100 defendants to trial. Judges sentenced more than 600 people who rioted on January 6 to prison terms. 22 years in federal prisonFor the leader of the Proud Boys was found guilty of sedition.