U.S. Marshals Now Looking Into Treatment of Jan. 6 Defendants
There was a riot on Jan. 6, I don’t know if you heard about it.
It lasted a few hours. But has gotten far more attention than hundreds of BLM/Antifa riots that continued across the country for months. It’s resulted in hundreds of arrests and even a special FBI page to track down people involved. There is no similar page for the BLM/Antifa riots which involved organized assaults on federal property and attacks on a federal courthouse for over 100 days in a row. Indeed there seemed to be no real effort to go after the organizers or hold people accountable for those radical leftist riots.
While there were certainly people who got violent on Jan. 6, video also shows many people just walking around the building. But even those people who may have just followed others into the building are being prosecuted, unlike the BLM/Antifa riots where even the violent largely seemed to walk away. Questions are being raised not only about proportionality but about the treatment of people still being held in jail for alleged offenses.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth called out this treatment during a case in which he found that one of the defendants hadn’t been provided with treatment for a broken hand. He found jail officials in civil contempt for failing to provide the records needed for the defendant’s medical treatment.
But Lamberth questioned what was happening with the treatment of the Jan. 6 defendants in general, as well.
“I find that the civil rights of the defendant have been abused,” Lamberth, who was appointed by former President Reagan, said at a hearing Wednesday morning, according to The Washington Post. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s a January 6th defendant or not, but I find this matter should be referred to the attorney general of the United States for a civil rights investigation into whether the D.C. Department of Corrections is violating the civil rights of January 6th defendants … in this and maybe other cases.”
Now there’s word that the U.S. Marshals’ Office has been inspecting the D.C. jail and talking to the people being held to see if they are being treated appropriately.
Multiple officials said a U.S. Marshals Service inspection team arrived at the jail Monday at 9:30 a.m. and was still inside at the end of the business day.
D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chris Geldart confirmed Monday the inspectors are speaking with Jan. 6 defendants and said all court orders are being followed.
“We have been working with the marshals office,” he said. “As a matter of fact, they’re in there today doing an inspection of the jail and talking with many of the Jan. 6 folks that are there to make sure that we are continuing to do that.”
Now that’s good news that they’re finally following up on the concerns about the treatment of defendants that have been out there for some time. Let’s hope there’s finally some effective action. We’ll have to see if there’s a further follow-up investigation or looking at the greater question about Jan. 6 facing harsher prosecution than BLM/Antifa or other rioters.
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