WASHINGTON – A Maryland police officer was found guilty on Friday of participating in a mob’s Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol and hurling a smoke bomb and other projectiles at policemen defending a tunnel entrance.
This week, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden heard two days of trial testimony without a jury and convicted Montgomery County Police Officer Justin Lee guilty of two felonies and three misdemeanors. The judge, who acquitted Lee of two additional offenses, will sentence him on November 22.
Lee, 26, lit and dropped a smoke bomb into the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where a swarm of rioters attacked an outnumbered group of police officers. According to prosecutors, the device struck a police officer’s riot shield and created a massive cloud of smoke at the opening of the tunnel.
“No police officer should have to endure these attacks and provocations,” McFadden told reporters.
Lee, who is still free until his sentence, had no visible emotion as the judge read out his verdict. His counsel declined to comment following the hearing.
Following Lee’s arrest in October, the police department announced that he had been suspended without pay. Shiera Goff, a department spokesman, said that now that Lee has been convicted, police authorities would “move forward with termination procedures.”
“The actions of one individual do not define the entire department,” the agency stated last year.
Lee, from Rockville, Maryland, sought to become a Montgomery County police officer in July 2021, six months after the violence. The department claimed it recruited Lee roughly a year after the riot and was unaware of his suspected role in the incident until July 2023, when it discovered he was under FBI investigation.
Lee may be seen in videos wearing a Maryland flag-patterned gaiter over his face outside the Capitol. He also had a military-style medical bag connected to his clothing.
According to authorities, Lee directed other rioters to overrun police as the throng attacked a line of policemen on West Plaza. Lee moved to the Lower West Terrace and threw the smoke bomb and three other “rock-like objects” at cops manning the tunnel, the court concluded. Prosecutors claim Lee then joined other protesters in “spotlighting” cops inside the tunnel with a flashlight.
The court dismissed Lee’s allegation that he was “just trying to make a statement” against police brutality after witnessing policemen use force on other protesters that day. McFadden also believes Lee traveled to the Capitol on January 6 to prevent Congress from declaring Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
According to defense counsel Terrell Roberts III, the assault accusation in this instance only relates to activities that result in bodily contact with the assault victim. Robert said that the riot shield avoided direct contact between the smoking gadget and the officer’s body.
“It would be bad policy to send a man to prison where the evidence fails to prove each element of an offense,” the defendant wrote before the trial.
Lee was charged with seven counts. The court found him guilty of two felonies—interfering with police during a civil disturbance and assaulting, resisting, or hindering officers—as well as minor charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing.
However, the judge acquitted him of two misdemeanor accusations of engaging in physical assault. McFadden determined that prosecutors failed to offer sufficient evidence that Lee committed an act of bodily violence.
Lee has been on administrative leave since July 22, 2023, when he shot and killed a man accused of stabbing four people, according to authorities. The agency stated that Lee had not been performing police officer responsibilities since the incident, but his unpaid suspension came from his arrest on Jan. 6 charges.
On the day of last year’s incident, cops were responding to reports of a stabbing at a thrift store in Silver Spring, Maryland, when they encountered a suspect with a butcher’s knife. Police claimed in a press release that the suspect defied officers’ demands to drop the knife and rushed toward Lee before being shot.
According to officials, one of the four stabbing victims has serious injuries. A police officer informed reporters that all of the victims were likely to survive the attacks, which he described as “unprovoked.”
More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal charges stemming from the Capitol incident. More than 900 of them have pled guilty. More than 200 others have been convicted following judge- or jury-led trials.
Only two Jan. 6 suspects were cleared on all counts following a trial. McFadden acquitted one of them, a Mexican man, following a non-jury trial.