FBI: 2 NY men arrested for participating in Capitol breach
Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - One posted a video of himself with his feet propped up on a U.S. senator's office table. One wrote "THIS IS ME" on an Instagram photo of rioters attacking Capitol police officers.
The two New York men, Brandon Fellows and Edward Jacob Lang, were arrested this weekend on charges related to the Jan. 6 violet insurrection led by supporters of President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol.
Fellows, 26, was arrested Saturday night by agents from the FBI's Albany office, a bureau spokesperson said.
Preparing for Inauguration Day violence
Governors in some states have called out the National Guard, declared states of emergency and closed their capitol buildings over concerns about potentially violent demonstrations.
Fellows, a former grocery store worker who has said he lives in a converted school bus, posted a video on Snapchat showing his feet propped on a table in the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat. "This one is going to get me incriminated," Fellows told a Bloomberg News reporter.
Lang, 25, was arrested by FBI agents Saturday at his home in New York's Hudson Valley after he posted photos and videos of himself outside the Capitol, prosecutors said in court papers.
A screenshot from Lang’s Instagram account depicts rioters attempting to violently breach the Capitol captioned "THIS IS ME," prosecutors said.
"I was the leader of Liberty today. Arrest me. You are on the wrong side of history," Lang captioned a video he posted. In another video from the insurrection scene, Lang swung a baseball bat at police officers, striking at least their shields, prosecutors said.
Get breaking news alerts in the FOX5NY News app. Download for FREE!
Fellows is charged with entering a restricted building without lawful authority and disrupting government business. Lang is charged with assaulting an officer, civil disorder and other crimes.
DC inauguration security
Thousands of National Guard troops, federal agents, and police officers are working to secure Washington ahead of and on Inauguration Day. The NYPD is sending about 200 cops to DC to help.
"Decisions have consequences,’’ William Sweeney Jr., the assistant director in charge of the bureau’s New York field office, said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Edward Lang is in custody for the ones he made during the assault on our Capitol."
It wasn't clear Sunday whether Lang or Fellows had attorneys who could speak for them.
The two men are among more than 125 people who have been arrested so far on charges related to the insurrection by Trump supporters aiming to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the November presidential election.