FBI Director Chris Wray said on Thursday that the agency is tracking “a lot of worrying online conversations”. This includes calls for armed protests before the president-elect Opening of Joe Biden on January 20.
He said that possible rallies and protests in state capitals across the country could draw armed individuals close to government officials and buildings.
“We are looking at individuals who may want to repeat the same type of violence that we saw last week,” said Wray, in his first public speech since the pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol.
The FBI has identified more than 200 suspects since the Jan. 6 attack, according to Wray. He warned, “If you’re there, an FBI agent is coming to look for you.”
Details about suspects are increasingly surfacing.
Some of them were identified as current or ex-police or military.
One is a retired Air Force officer, who was arrested in Texas last weekend after allegedly being seen in a viral photo holding plastic handcuffs in the Senate chamber. A prosecutor said Thursday he carried them because he intended to “take hostages”.
“He intends to take hostages. He intends to kidnap, restrict, maybe try, maybe execute members of the United States government,” said Assistant Attorney Jay Weimer of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr.
A law enforcement official told CBS News that a police officer in Washington DC saw protesters using military-style hand signals to communicate inside the Capitol building during the attack. Identifying people using small unit military tactics is among the “top priorities” for a Sedition Task Force led by the DCUS Prosecutor’s Office, Catherine Herridge of CBS News reported.
Federal authorities have accused more than 40 people in connection with the riot.
Ting Shen / Xinhua photo via Getty
Contributing: The Associated Press