Their faces have toured the world since their intrusion on the Capitol on Wednesday, photographed with their feet on the desk of an elected official, parading with a Confederate flag or sitting at the office of the President of the Senate.
Who are these supporters of Donald Trump, doped by his rhetoric to the point of sowing chaos in the precincts of the American Parliament? Many have now been identified, including the woman fatally injured when the violence began. Here are the main elements collected on each of them, mostly active on social networks.
– Richard Barnett, militant pro-armes
Coming from Arkansas (south), this sixty-year-old with a strong southern accent invited himself into the office of Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.
It’s “my office,” he told local KFSM 5News on Wednesday. “I’m a taxpayer. I’m a patriot. It’s not his office. We loaned it to him.”
Known locally for hosting a pro-gun Facebook group, 2A NWA STAND, Richard Barnett, nicknamed “Bigo,” claimed to have found himself in this office almost by accident. “I was pushed here,” he said, as “I looked for the toilet.”
Before leaving, he left an insulting note with Nancy Pelosi. Last I heard, he was free, although he could be arrested quickly. “Am I scared? No! But jail is a possibility,” he told reporters after leaving the building.
– Jake Angeli, Buffalo Headdress Conspirator
Shirtless, Native American headdress with buffalo horns, make-up, the “spiritual warrior”, as he describes himself, has magnetized photographers and cameras to the four corners of the Capitol.
Originally from Arizona, this thirty-something has already been seen many times during pro-Trump protests in Phoenix in recent months, systematically wearing his famous headdress.
He presents himself as a “digital soldier of QAnon”, the conspiratorial movement of which Donald Trump is the hero and which saw Wednesday’s intrusion as a triumph.
“We are patriots, on the front in Arizona, who want to bring our positive energy to (Washington),” he wrote in a message posted in December on the darling ultra-conservative social network Speak.
– Matthew Heimbach, from the neo-Nazi movement
Photographed alongside Jake Angeli, the round-faced, 29-year-old surrounded by rimless glasses is considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an observatory of extremist groups, to be “the face of a new generation of white nationalists “.
He is considered one of the organizers of the far-right rally in Charlottesville (Virginia), in August 2017, on the sidelines of which a woman was killed by a neo-Nazi sympathizer.
– Adam Johnson, the desk thief
Surprised carrying Nancy Pelosi’s desk, the thirty-something in the Trump cap spontaneously made a friendly sign to the photographer, all smiles.
He was quickly identified as Adam Johnson, a resident of Parrish, Florida, according to local press.
In the immediate future, it was more his wife, a doctor, who bore the brunt of the break-in, inundated with sarcastic messages on the many sites on which she is referenced.
– Ashli Babbitt, former Air Force, killed on Capitol Hill
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