By The Vanguard Staff
WASHINGTON, DC – A DC-area cop—hired as a Montgomery County police officer after Jan. 6, 2021—was arrested Thursday for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to news reports.
Justin Lee, 25, “was indicted on seven charges related to the Jan. 6 mob violence, including assaulting a D.C. police officer and impeding police during a civil disorder — both felonies,” said the Washington Post.
Lee applied to join the Montgomery County department in July 2021, police spokeswoman Shiera D. Goff said, and was hired in January 2022. He was suspended without pay after the arrest and the department is moving to fire him, Goff added, the Post wrote.
She added the department “conducts a thorough background investigation as part of its standard hiring process” but had no information from the Justice Department identifying Lee as a participant in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The police department is reviewing its background-check process in response to Lee’s arrest “to determine whether adjustments need to be made,” she said, accord the Washington Post.
The Post added, “Dozens of former or current law enforcement officers attended Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, and some then joined the violent mob at the Capitol. Thomas Webster, who served as a New York City police officer for decades, tackled a D.C. police officer outside the Capitol and exposed the officer to tear gas.
“Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson were both officers in the small Virginia town of Rocky Mount when they broke through police lines and breached the Capitol building. A California police chief turned yoga instructor was convicted of obstruction of Congress. Last week, a former sheriff’s deputy from rural Tennessee was convicted at trial of assaulting a police officer on the Capitol steps.”
The indictment does not give any details about Lee’s alleged conduct at the Capitol, added the Post, but did note Lee “engaged in physical violence and assaulted, impeded or resisted a D.C. officer.”
Lee’s employment as a Montgomery County officer is interesting because, as the Post said, Montgomery officers “were deployed to the Capitol during the attack on Jan. 6, helping guard the east side of the building when Capitol Police and D.C. police were overwhelmed. They had been stationed elsewhere in the city in case violence broke out on D.C. streets.”
Reportedly, Lee is already on administrative leave, with pay, because of a shooting that is still under investigation.
The Post wrote, in July, Lee “fatally shot a 19-year-old man suspected of stabbing multiple people in and around a shopping center in Aspen Hill, Md.,” according to police. Body-camera footage shows the man running toward Lee with a knife before the officer fired. That same month the police department was informed that Lee was under investigation by the FBI, Goff said in a statement.
Republican traitors and felons richly deserve to go to prison. The authorities will find and arrest you. It’s only a matter of time.
While I do, and everybody should, condemn those who committed any violence or destruction, there is another side to Jan. 6th. I recently read the book by Julie Kelly, and Yes, believe it or not, there are two sides to this. Some detainees were treated in a manner which almost everyone would call inhumane. A petite, unarmed woman was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer, and some were brutalized, including a man who lost vision in one eye after a beating while in custody, and another man who was denied treatment for multiple myeloma. This kind of treatment of anyone is unacceptable, regardless of their political beliefs. This after all, is still a free and decent country…….I think.
The other side consists of treasonous morally and ethically challenged and repugnant humans. Prison awaits anyone stupid enough to follow a now disgraced former President’s orders to riot. It’s funny that yesterday another Republican criminal admitted in court that Stop the Steal was just one big fat lie. These people are going to prison to stop a mirage. They will have plenty of time to ponder that thought. Lovin’ it.
Great company Republican felons keep these days.