Dave LaRock. Photograph by VCU Capital News Service, via Flickr.
Virginia state Delegate Dave LaRock faces calls to resign after he took part in last week’s protest against President Trump’s election loss, which turned deadly when a pro-Trump mob invaded the US Capitol. Since January 6, he’s issued a statement that propagates the bogus theory that “paid provocateurs” were responsible for besmirching an “otherwise orderly protest.”
LaRock also sent a letter to Vice President Pence on House of Delegates letterhead that called for Pence to nullify the election results in Virginia, citing concerns about the security of the vote in a state that Joe Biden won handily.
Photograph by Evy Mages
For anyone following last Wednesday’s riot at the US Capitol, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism has established an indispensable database of court records related to the event, and the collection is sure to grow. Here are some eyebrow-raising quotes from the documents so far.
Around 7:20 PM on January 6, DC police officer Dallan Haynes writes, he was helping to clear the area in front of the Capitol an hour and a half after DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s curfew. Haynes says he was escorting people past a police line when:
As I approached ALBERTS from his rear, I noticed a bulge on ALBERTS’ right hip. Based on my training and experience, I recognized the bulge was consistent with that of a hand gun. … ALBERTS was also wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a backpack. At that point, I told two MPD officers next to him that ALBERTS had a firearm on his person. ALBERTS, apparently hearing that, immediately tried to flee, but I was ab