This Jan. 6, 2021 photo made available by the United States Capitol Police in a complaint and arrest warrant shows Rocky Mount Police Department Sgt. Thomas “T.J.” Robertson and officer Jacob Fracker in the Capitol in front of a statute of John Stark, a Revolutionary War officer famous for writing the state motto of New Hampshire, “Live Free or Die.”
United States Capitol Police | AP
The U.S. Army said that Jacob Fracker — one of the two off-duty Virginia police officers who have been arrested on federal charges related to the Capitol riot — is a corporal in the Virginia National Guard.
Fracker is the first known active military service member charged in the assault on the halls of Congress.
The disclosure of Fracker’s status as a guardsman comes as thousands of National Guard service members, some of them armed, provide security in and around the Capitol in the wake of the deadly riot Jan. 6.
President Donald Trump was impeached Tuesday for inciting the mob, which objected to the election of Joe Biden as president.
Fracker and fellow Rocky Mount, Virginia, Police Officer Thomas Robertson were seen posing for a photograph, making obscene gestures, in front of a statue in the Capitol during the invasion, according to charging documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Other rioters that same day killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, and beat and bear-sprayed other cops who defended the complex.
Four other people died during the melee, including an Air Force veteran, Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was shot by police as she tried to climb through a blockaded area in the House of Representatives building.
Another member of the mob, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr., has been charged in the riot, where he was photographed on the Senate floor wearing a helmet and carrying zip-tie handcuffs.
This undated photo provided by the Grapevine, Texas Police Department in January 2021 shows Larry Rendall Brock Jr. During the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, Brock was photographed on the Senate floor wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying zip-tie handcuffs.
Grapevine, Texas Police Department via AP
Brock was carrying the handcuffs because he meant to “take hostages” and possibly “execute members of the U.S. government,” a federal prosecutor told a judge, who allowed Brock to be released into home confinement in Texas on Thursday.
In a social media post that referred to the photo of him and Robertson, Fracker wrote, “Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting both cops.
“Sorry I hate freedom?” Fracker wrote. “Not like I did anything illegal … y’all do what you feel you need to.”
Robertson, in his own taunting social media post after the attack, wrote, “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small…
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