Two Washington men have each been charged with a felony count of assault on a police officer and several misdemeanors for being among the crowd who breached the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Richard Slaughter, 40, of Orting, Pierce County, and Caden Paul Gottfried, identified in federal charging documents as Slaughter's stepson, are accused of illegally entering the Capitol and assaulting police officers defending the building from a large mob that had gathered in an area known as the "tunnel" on the lower west terrace of the building.
Both men appeared in U.S. District Court in Tacoma after their arrests Wednesday. The charges were filed by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia, where both men will appear at a later date.
The charges — which include a series of photographs of the men in the crowd that afternoon — allege Slaughter grabbed a police shield from another rioter and kept it from a police officer. He then engaged with officers guarding the tunnel, declaring, among other things, "You guys need to stand down. Just walk away, nobody will [expletive] hurt any of you."
A few minutes later, Slaughter is allegedly seen using a black metal pole to attack officers at the front line of the tunnel. He also handed chemical spray to another rioter in the crowd, according to a detailed statement of probable cause filed with the complaint.
Gottfried was also in front of the tunnel during the same period, according to the complaint, and used his body weight to push against the line of officers protecting access to the Capitol. Officers pulled him into the tunnel, where they detained him. He eventually was released.
According to charging documents, Gottfried and Slaughter initially came to the attention of the Seattle Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after an incident aboard an Alaska Airlines flight the day after the insurrection, involving allegations of noncompliance to masking rules and protesting the results of the 2020 election.
The charges say Slaughter was interviewed by FBI agents in February 2021 and admitted to being at the Capitol building on Jan. 6 with Gottfried, but he denied any crimes were committed. He reportedly told the agents, "Conservatives don't protest, they have jobs."
Later, cooperating witnesses directed agents to social media, where they found images of Slaughter at the Capitol on Jan. 6 on his wife's Facebook page, as well as links to open-source video from the insurrection in which Slaughter is seen.
Slaughter and Gottlieb are among 14 Washington residents who have been charged in connection with the insurrection, including Ethan Nordean of Auburn, a leader of the white-nationalist extremist group the Proud Boys, who is accused of being one of the planners of the attack, which was intended to "stop the steal" and disrupt congressional certification of the 2020 election of Joe Biden as president.
