WASHINGTON – DC police released a man they had arrested for attacking police officers outside the US Capitol on January 6 because they were ordered to return to the riot, according to
unsealed collection papers
on Wednesday.
Mark Ponder, who told police at the time that he lived in Washington, DC, was knocked to the ground outside the Capitol at around 2:49 pm by a group of Metropolitan Police Department officers after pointing a stick at them and hitting a cop on the shoulder. But about 25 minutes later, he was allowed to leave because a police transport failed to reach the Capitol grounds and the police who arrested him were forced to return to the riot to help control the crowd, according to the court records. court.
“[D]Because of the chaotic nature of the day, the arrest was not completed on January 6, 2021, ”wrote an FBI agent in a sworn statement included in Ponder’s indictment documents, which were opened on Wednesday after his arrest earlier. of the day.
It was the most recent example of how the lack of advance planning for the January 6 events meant that the police were oppressed by the thousands of protesters who stormed the Capitol grounds. The US Capitol Police estimated that 800 people entered the Capitol and 10,000 people entered the site. Few participants in the insurrection were arrested that day, and the FBI, federal prosecutors and their federal and local law enforcement partners have spent the past two months gathering evidence and tracking suspects that spread across the country after they were allowed to leave without arrest. .
After being restrained by MPD officers and escorted off Capitol grounds, Ponder reportedly repeatedly shouted to other protesters, “Keep the line!” and “Don’t give up!” The camera on a policeman’s body recorded Ponder initially refusing to give his name and then appeared to confirm his name after the officers searched his wallet. When the officers learned they needed to get back to the turmoil, they asked Ponder to provide an address.
The officers then led Ponder out of a barricaded area and told him that he could not return. He held his arm in the air as he left and other protesters applauded him, according to his indictment documents. Approximately two hours later, the government claimed that another officer’s body camera recorded Ponder on Capitol grounds near a stage that was set up in anticipation of President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20; he left the area after the police fired tear gas on the crowd.
The leadership of the U.S. Capitol Police asked the MPD for help with the crowd that was descending on the Capitol just before 1 pm on January 6, according to MPD’s acting chief Robert Contee, who testified before the Senate in February. Contee described how his department’s top priorities were controlling the crowd and cleaning the Capitol so that lawmakers could resume the joint session to certify the Electoral College; making arrests was the bottom of the list, he said. Contee testified that the officers were “far fewer” than the protesters and that he was “surprised” at the delay of the US Army in sending the DC National Guard.
The US prosecutor’s office in Washington filed charges against Ponder under wraps on March 12. An FBI spokesman forwarded a request for information about the timing of the investigation into Ponder’s involvement in the Capitol riot to prosecutors. A spokesman for MPD did not immediately return a request for comment. A phone number listed in publicly available records for Ponder has been disconnected.
Ponder is not accused of entering the Capitol, but is accused of attacking the police on the ground outside the building using long, thin poles; the first pole broke after he hit an official’s shield, and he appeared to find another on the spot, according to the government. His collection papers include images from police body cameras that show him swinging the poles against the police.
On February 18, an FBI agent met with the MPD officer who was allegedly hit by Ponder and was involved in his arrest, according to the prosecution’s documents. The MPD official identified Ponder in photos taken from the footage of the police corps camera. Government court documents do not disclose any other details about the investigation.