Virginia man arrested for allegedly assaulting officers during Jan. 6 Capitol riot

A Virginia man has been arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Darl McDorman, 53, of Waynesboro, is accused of assaulting law enforcement officers during the attempted insurrection, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. news release.

He’s charged with “felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon,” the government said.

The FBI arrested McDorman on Thursday.

According to court documents, McDorman “allegedly threw multiple objects at law enforcement” in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6.

Those items included “what appeared to be a short silver pipe and a separate long brown metal pipe. McDorman then picked up a wooden flagpole and used it to allegedly strike officers repeatedly. McDorman then helped pass other items to other rioters, including a metal object and a desk drawer.”

After that, he “picked up what appeared to be a blue-colored folding lawn chair in a storage bag and threw the chair toward police, striking one officer.”

Later, “McDorman can be seen in open-source video footage approaching the police line, holding a metal bike-rack-like police barrier with both hands and hurling it at the police line. Sometime later, McDorman is seen again throwing an unidentified metal object, approximately 2-3 feet long, at the police line, which struck the shield of (a D.C.) officer.”

The Justice Department said 1,387 people have been charged in connection to the Capitol riot that aimed to disrupt the 2020 election.

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Will Vitka

William Vitka is a Digital Writer/Editor for WTOP.com. He's been in the news industry for over a decade. Before joining WTOP, he worked for CBS News, Stuff Magazine, The New York Post and wrote a variety of books—about a dozen of them, with more to come.

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