PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 71-year-old King of Prussia man is charged with breaking a metal Trump flagpole over a Washington, D.C. police officer outside the U.S. Capitol building during the insurrection on January 6.
According to the federal statement of facts (which you can read below), Howard Richardson is seen in videos including body camera footage from D.C. Metropolitan Police officers hitting an officer with a metal flagpole with a blue Trump flag attached to it.
The court documents say the attack was unprovoked, and Richardson can be heard in the video yelling, “here it comes” as he swings the flag pole at the officer.
The documents say he stopped swinging after the flagpole broke.
The statement of facts shows that Richardson initially told FBI agents he was provoked by the officer, but changed his story after he was shown the video.
He was quoted in the statement of facts as saying, “I’m not saying this is the best behavior I could have done here,” but the statement says he went on to say he was provoked by others in the crowd.
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Authorities said they recovered the blue Brigantine windbreaker Richardson is seen wearing in the videos. They also got his day planner, where he wrote down where he was around the Capitol, including “gates were breached” at 1 p.m., “got pepper sprayed” at 2 p.m., and “started to leave” at 3:30 p.m.
Richardson has two open cases in Montgomery County, one for carrying a concealed handgun even though his permit to carry had been revoked. He is also charged with aggravated assault.
The federal complaint mentions that assault, but says only that it involved a motorcycle rider outside his home. Upper Merion police identified him as the man seen in the video.
Richardson was placed in federal custody and had a detention hearing scheduled for Friday.
