Nichols does not appear to have any ties to the Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy, and there is no evidence he communicated with them before the Jan. Capitol Police Officer Tarik Khalid Johnson, bottom, in a MAGA hat, leads police officers in riot gear behind Michael Nichols, bottom right, with megaphone, on Jan. Johnson, who was demoted in connection with the incident, recently resigned from the U.S. The officers Johnson rescued were then able to redeploy elsewhere in the Capitol, Johnson’s lawyer said. Once the officers were safely out of the way, other officers were able to temporarily shut the doors, which rioters had breached by taking advantage of the fire exit mechanism, which allowed them to open the magnetically-locked doors by pushing a bar for three seconds. He was trying to rescue over a dozen officers who were pinned down inside the Capitol, caught between rioters who had already broken into the building and a flood of other Trump supporters who had breached a door and were trying to push their way in.Īnd it seems he succeeded. Johnson put on the MAGA cap as a ruse to get people in the crowd to help him, his lawyer confirmed. NBC News, with help from a group of open-source researchers that have focused on the Oath Keepers, reviewed multiple videos of the moment and spoke with Johnson’s lawyer and with Michael Nichols, the Oath Keeper and retired police officer who assisted the Capitol Police that day. 6 and that the charges against them are overblown.īut an NBC News review of the incident doesn’t align with those narratives. Some saw it as evidence of a far too cozy relationship between law enforcement and the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, while others on the right, including some lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers now on trial for seditious conspiracy, argue it is evidence that members of the Oath Keepers assisted law enforcement on Jan. 6, but questions remain about what exactly happened on the Capitol steps that day. ![]() The Wall Street Journal reported on the officer in the MAGA hat - Tarik Khalid “T.K.” Johnson, a former Capitol Police lieutenant - in the days after Jan. Video from earlier in the day shows him flashing what appears to be a police badge at the officer and offering to help. The man escorting them, with the bullhorn in the Eddie Bauer jacket, was a member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization. “That’s the police being escorted by the people, that’s what that is, cause it’s our f-ing building,” says Minuta, filming the scene on his phone. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, as police in riot gear march out, is 37-year-old Roberto Minuta of Texas. So is the “ QAnon Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, fresh off a visit to the Senate chamber that would later lead to a sentence of more than three years in prison. 6 committee, is there, watching from the sides. Stephen Ayres, a Capitol rioter and later a defendant who testified before the Jan. ![]() A man in a black QAnon hoodie and a Trump hat blesses the officers as they go down the stairs. Through their face shields, none of the cops looks thrilled. A woman in a USA sweatshirt hugs the officers, who do not hug her back as they make their way out of the Capitol and through the crowd. A man slaps the police officers’ helmets in support, as others slap them on the back. “The cops are leaving! We won!” says another. ![]() “Make a hole! They’re leaving!” one man yells in one of many videos that captured the moment.
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