As Biden seeks to jump-start his term, law enforcement braces for possible violence nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
U.S. Capitol Police said that Mr. Beeler was stopped Friday night at 6:30 p.m. at a security checkpoint established in anticipation of the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden.
Mr. Beeler presented a “non-government issued credential,” U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement it shared with The Washington Times.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Roger Dupont recalled in an affidavit filed in court afterward that a colleague then “observed several firearm-related decals” on the rear windshield of Mr. Beeler‘s truck.
Among the decals on the back of the truck were ones that said along the lines of “Assault Life” and “If they come for your guns Give ‘Em your bullets first’,” the officer wrote.
The U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man at a security checkpoint in Washington on Friday after he flashed what an officer described as an “unauthorized” inauguration credential and a search of his truck found an unregistered handgun and ammunition, the authorities said. A federal law enforcement official said that the man, Wesley A. Beeler, 31, worked as a contractor, and that his credential was issued by the Park Police, but was not recognized.
How Republicans Are Warping Reality Around the Capitol Attack
Loyalists to President Trump are increasingly relying on conspiracy theories and misinformation, drawing false equivalence with last summer’s racial protests and blaming outside agitators.
Joe Pillizzi, a 67-year-old retired salesman in Kenosha, Wis., who supports President Trump, said he believed the summer’s looting and rioting had “put a seed” in the minds of the mob that attacked the Capitol.Credit.Lauren Justice for The New York Times
Published Jan. 17, 2021Updated March 1, 2021
Immediately after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, all corners of the political spectrum repudiated the mob of President Trump’s supporters. Yet within days, prominent Republicans, party officials, conservative media voices and rank-and-file voters began making a rhetorical shift to try to downplay the group’s violent actions.
The Rev. Silvester Beaman, pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware, who will deliver the benediction at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony next Wednesday, says he's confident the president-elect will “seek after the heart of God” to lead the country.