The man wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt, which was photographed last week in the pro-Trump riot at the United States Capitol, was arrested in Virginia on Wednesday, prison records show.
Robert Keith Packer, a 56-year-old Newport News resident, was arrested at the Western Tidewater Regional Prison by the US Marshals Service at 8:53 am, according to prison records.
The FBI’s Joint Norfolk Terrorism Task Force “arrested Robert Keith Packer of Newport News and Douglas Allen Sweet of Grimstead, Virginia, on federal charges related to his role in events at the United States Capitol” last week, the door said. FBI spokeswoman Christina Pullen in a statement.
Packer is expected to be charged with illegal conduct, entering the Capitol without permission and disorderly conduct.
A bearded white man wearing a long-sleeved “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt was among the most impressive images taken in last week’s US Capitol uprising when crowds incited by outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the building in hopes of overthrowing President-elect Joe Biden electoral victory.
Auschwitz was one of the most notorious extermination camps run by the Nazis during the Holocaust and World War II. Packer’s sweatshirt also includes the words “Work brings freedom”, in apparent homage to the German phrase “Arbeit macht frei”, which was stamped on the gates of Auschwitz and other death camps.
Sydney Cohen, a resident of Hampton, Virginia, said Packer owns the vacant lot near his home. She said the man pictured with the “Camp Auschwitz” shirt and the photo of the defendant listed in the Western Tidewater Regional Prison records is the same person.
“I think seeing things on television is one thing, you can shake your head and be worried,” Cohen told NBC News on Wednesday. “But it is a different feeling to have someone you know personally who is involved (in the riots).”
Cohen said he shuddered that Packer could harbor anti-Semitic beliefs.
“He knows my name,” said Cohen, 53. “It is an evil that I did not know and it is scary.”
It was not immediately clear whether Packer hired a lawyer. A representative of the local federal public defender said the office was named after Packer for possible representation, but no court appointed him as a lawyer until late Wednesday morning.
Polly DeFrank and Pete Williams contributed.