Defendant Landon Copeland will be detained in jail until he faces trial, federal Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather said Friday. Prosecutors say Copeland stole a riot shield on Jan. 6, turned a metal fence into a gun, and pushed other riot police into the police line. He has not yet claimed all four charges in this case.
Prosecutors say Copeland was released just two days after his arrest in May when he broke into a probation office in Utah.
That’s when Copeland called a probation officer and announced he was on his way because he wanted to be heard and “would die for it,” the agent said, testifying during the more than two-hour hearing on Friday.
The probation officer put on body armor in anticipation of Copeland’s arrival. According to the agent, Copeland took off his T-shirt, pressed his head against the bulletproof glass separating them and said he would eat the officer if he was on the other side because he was “starving.”
After about 15 minutes, Copeland left, the officer said.
“Mr. Copeland’s conduct in the short time of his release speaks aloud,” Meriweather said at the hearing Friday. Meriweather added that “it seems that mental health and substance abuse are indeed a role” in the Copeland outbreak, and expressed concern that “something like this will happen when you are alone” and not under supervision. from prison.
Once in prison, Copeland underwent a mental health assessment and was considered competent. Prosecutors noted that Copeland had been refusing mental health medications while in prison.
Copeland’s defense attorneys said the blast was “clearly a mental health episode” and that Copeland “doesn’t want harm to happen to anyone.”
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.