A North Carolina man accused of assaulting a line of police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol siege was ultimately done in by his choice of headwear, according to authorities.
David Paul Daniel, 36, was arrested Thursday in the Charlotte suburb of Mint Hill, on two felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and civil disorder. He was one of two people leading a “violent push” against the barricaded Senate wing door “and the officers attempting to hold it,” states a criminal complaint filed in Washington, D.C., federal court.
Daniel and the others managed to overwhelm the cops about a minute later, and the mob rampaged throughout the building, the complaint says.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Daniel remained at the front of the group of rioters pushing against the [U.S. Capitol Police] officers for the entire effort,” according to the complaint. “He also appeared to have lost his grey beanie at some point during the assault.”
In September 2022, a tipster contacted the FBI with a photo of Daniel, known to the bureau as “Insider 2843,” and identified him for agents, the complaint goes on.
“A review of publicly available information and websites revealed that… Daniel has several social media accounts with no privacy settings,” the complaint states. “... In several publicly available photographs and videos, Daniel is wearing a beanie with what appears to be a patch or embroidery of the animated character ‘Vault Boy’ from the ‘Fallout’ video game franchise. As discussed above, it appears that the beanie is lost as Daniel leads the rioters in their push against the USCP officers.”
The complaint says that while it is “unclear whether he eventually found it or procured a new one in some other manner, several videos and photos posted to Daniel’s public Instagram account after January 6, 2021, show him wearing what appears to be the same beanie.”
A pair of brown pants that Daniel wore to the Capitol also appeared in one of his posts, according to the complaint.
In addition to the pair of felonies, Daniel is also facing a slew of misdemeanor charges, including entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; willfully and knowingly engaging in an act of physical violence in the grounds or any of the Capitol buildings; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
Daniel is among the more than 1,200 people to date charged with breaching the Capitol in a violent but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at blocking Joe Biden’s electoral win in the 2020 presidential election. He does not yet have a lawyer listed in court records, and was unable to be reached for comment on Thursday.
