FBI Director Chris Wray said Thursday that the agency monitors a large number of online chats. ‘This includes calls for armed protests in front of the elected president Joe Biden’s Inauguration on January 20th.
He said possible rallies and protests in heads of state nationwide could attract armed individuals near officials and government buildings.
“We’re looking at individuals who may have an eye for repeating the same kind of violence we saw last week,” Wray said in his first public remarks since Trump. rioters storm the US Capitol.
The FBI, according to Wray, has now identified more than 200 suspects since the January 6 attack. He warned: “If you’re out there, an FBI agent will come and find you.
Details about suspects are increasingly coming to light.
Some of them have been identified as current or former police or military personnel.
One is a retired Air Force officer who was arrested in Texas last weekend after he was allegedly seen on a viral photo in which he was holding plastic handcuffs with a zipper in the Senate chamber. A prosecutor said Thursday he carried them because he intended “to take hostages.”
“He meant to take hostages. He meant to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try to execute members of the U.S. government,” U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Rendall Brock Jr.
A law enforcement official told CBS News that a Washington DC police officer saw rioters using military hand signals during the assault in the Capitol building. Identifying people who use military small unit tactics is one of the “top priorities” for a Sedition Task Force managed by the DCUS Attorney General’s Office. Catherine Herridge, reports CBS News.
Federal authorities have charged more than 40 people in connection with the riot.
Photo by Ting Shen / Xinhua via Getty
Contributing Contributions: The Associated Press