WASHINGTON — With less than 50 days until President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Justice Department continues to prosecute and arrest Jan. 6 rioters, even as Trump has said he has arrested an unknown number of the more than Will pardon 1,500 people charged in connection with the attack.
There are still more than 90 people listed on the FBI’s Capitol Violence page, which features photos of the agency’s most wanted rioters, who have been identified by the FBI but not yet arrested, online sleuths told NBC News. And the sleuths who helped in these cases have identified hundreds more rioters who were not listed on the Capitol Violence page and may never face justice.
With little time left, the Justice Department plans to focus on arresting and prosecuting the “most egregious” cases, especially those of people accused of a crime against law enforcement, a law enforcement official said told NBC News last month.
Among them is a man who, according to online sleuths, has long since been identified as a rioter, who has attacked police officers and has not been arrested in years. The FBI has been searching a home address linked to the man in recent weeks, NBC News has learned.
The rioter is known to online “incitement hunters” as “Old Double Shot,” a nickname he earned because he is seen on video of the Jan. 6 attack with “double-fisted aerosol cans” that he appeared to use to attack police officers with chemical spray on the west side of the U.S. Capitol. A video later emerged showing someone appearing to be the same man, wearing a Trump camouflage hat and a T-shirt worn on his back like a cape, attacking police with a pole as the crowd descended the stairs and came closer to the police. Capitol.
Numerous rioters have been charged with crimes and convicted of using pepper spray or bear spray against officers during the attack on the Capitol, many of whom have received prison sentences.
“Old Double Shot” uses chemical spray on police at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
When online sleuths searched the ‘Old Double Shot’ footage through publicly available facial recognition software in the weeks after the attack on the Capitol, they told NBC News they found an old video of a person who looked strikingly similar to the same man at a Tea Party . rally and then a more recent video of someone who appeared to be him outside a Trump rally. Facial recognition software also led them to the website of Koetting Insurance in Germantown, Illinois, and to a man named Michael Koetting.
“Old Double Shot” is one of the sleuths’ first identifications; they say they gave it to the FBI more than three and a half years ago. His image did appear in another Jan. 6 affidavit, NBC News reported in February, but “Old Double Shot” was never arrested.
In recent weeks, however, the FBI has searched a home address that public records show is linked to Koetting, NBC News confirmed. A BBC reporter first reported that a search took place in a small town in southern Illinois on January 6, and an FBI spokesperson confirmed to NBC News: “FBI Springfield executed a search warrant at the address in question.”
Koetting did not respond to requests for comment for this article or for previous reporting in 2021. Following standard practice, the FBI does not comment on cases where no charges have been filed, confirming only that it executed a search warrant. at the address belonging to Koetting.
In the nearly four years since the attack on the Capitol, Michael Koetting has been removed from the Koetting Insurance website, and an employee who answered the phone said he was no longer associated with the company and that the employee had no contact information for him. and was “not sure” if he was still in the country. The employee confirmed that he knew the FBI searched Koetting’s home – which is next door to the insurance company – but said the insurance company itself did not.
Images of “Old Double Shot” never appeared on the FBI’s Capitol Violence website, which typically features photos of persons of interest not yet identified by the FBI. Because the website is built to generate new public tips, it typically doesn’t add people if the FBI already has names or solid leads in hand.
Of the more than 1,500 defendants the FBI arrested on January 6, federal prosecutors have secured the convictions of more than 1,100 people on charges ranging from criminal mischief, unlawful picketing or parading to seditious conspiracy against the US. More than 600 people have been sentenced to periods of incarceration that range from a few days in prison to a record 22 years in federal prison for former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
