LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) – An Arkansas man was charged Thursday with hitting a police officer with a stick flying the U.S. flag during last week’s riots at the U.S. Capitol., according to judicial documentation.
In an affidavit of arrest filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, an FBI agent said Peter Francis Stager appears in video and photographs repeatedly hitting a police officer with the flagpole after riots dragged the officer by the stairs west of the Capitol.
Confidential informants had recognized Stager in video and photographs of riots and alerted authorities, who have accused Stager of interfering with police officers during a civil disorder, according to the affidavit.
Stager was in custody Thursday, said Allison Bragg, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Little Rock, Arkansas. He referred all questions about the arrest to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, where a spokesman did not immediately return any messages Thursday.
No Stager attorney was on the court records.
Stager is the second Arkansas resident to be arrested and charged with participating in the January 6 Capitol attack by pro-Trump loyalists that left five people dead, including a police officer. An arrest hearing in Little Rock Federal Court is scheduled for Friday for Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, who remains in federal custody after his arrest on charges that included illegal entry into a restricted area with a lethal weapon – in this case, a stun gun.
The FBI identified Barnett as a riot policeman photographed sitting in the office chair of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Capitol uprising. He surrendered to federal agents on January 8th.