Republican Lawmaker Who Filmed Himself Breaking Into US Capitol Arrested

A West Virginia state lawmaker has been arrested after filming himself breaking into the US Capitol.

Derrick Evans has been charged with entering a restricted area and entering the US Capitol after joining in the riots that took place on Wednesday, January 6.

In a now-deleted live stream of Evans and other rioters breaking in to the Capitol, he could be heard shouting, ‘We’re in! We’re in, baby!’

Ken Kohl, a top official in the US attorney’s office for Washington, confirmed the news of Evans’ arrest.

As of yesterday, January 8, Evans’ lawyer John Bryan told CNN that he was yet to see the complaint against his client and therefore declined to comment on the matter.

However, in a separate comment, Bryan claimed that Evans had ‘no other choice but to enter’ due to the size of the crowd he was in and that ‘it wasn’t apparent to Mr. Evans that he wasn’t allowed to follow the crowd into this public area of the Capitol, inside which members of the public were already located’.

In a now-deleted post on his Facebook page, calling himself ‘The Activist’, Evans refused to apologise for his involvement.

He wrote, ‘I want to assure you all that I did not have any negative interactions with law enforcement nor did I participate in any destruction that may have occurred’ and that he was there ‘simply there as an independent member of the media’.

There have since been calls for Evans to resign from his role as Member of the West Virginia House of Delegates with West Virginia House speaker Roger Hanshaw condemning his actions.

Hanshaw said in a statement, ‘While free speech and peaceful protests are a core value of American society, storming government buildings and participating in a violent intentional disruption of one of our nation’s most fundamental political institutions is a crime that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’

Evans isn’t the first person involved in Wednesday’s riots to be arrested; Richard Barnett, the individual who broke into Nancy Pelosi’s office, has also been arrested. A photo of Barnett had surfaced on social media of him sat at Pelosi’s desk with his feet up on it.

Barnett is facing charges of entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry and theft of public property and is currently being held at Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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