TUESDAY, MARCH 1 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU B5
it a crime to transport firearms for
unlawful use in a riot — in Reffitt’s
case, by allegedly bringing an AR-
15 rifle and .40-caliber Smith &
Wesson pistol.
For U.S. authorities, the trial
marks a milestone that carries
with it political and legal risks, as
well as potential rewards. For the
first time, a defendant will be able
to confront in open court a por-
tion of the mountain of video
evidence, online communications
data and police testimony the
government has amassed against
roughly 750 federally charged in-
dividuals. A judge and a jury in
D.C. also will weigh prosecutors’
novel application of rarely used
criminal statutes to prosecute the
first violent incursion of the Capi-
tol by U.S. citizens.
A swift guilty verdict and stiff
sentence could motivate many of
the approximately 375 remaining
Jan. 6 defendants who face felony
charges and have pleaded not
guilty to accept plea deals, legal
analysts said.
But prosecutors face a different
fight in the court of public opin-
ion. Justice Department allega-
tions of Reffitt’s involvement in a
right-wing self-styled militia
movement, opposition to federal
firearm laws, adoption of revolu-
tionary rhetoric and armed pres-
ence in a riotous crowd of sup-
porters of President Donald
Trump c ould require prosecutors
to navigate divisive topics to ex-
plain what separates political vio-
lence from legitimate free speech,
association and gun rights.
Handled clumsily, Reffitt’s
prosecution could worsen dis-
trust of the federal government
and the radicalization of U.S. poli-
tics — deepening the country’s
fault lines just as they tore apart
the defendant’s own family, ex-
perts said.
Michael R. Sherwin, who led
the Capitol breach prosecution as
acting U.S. attorney for D.C. be-
fore leaving the Justice Depart-
ment last March, said the first
trials are important for two rea-
sons: to show that the govern-
ment can move swiftly and that
the trials can be conducted fairly
and impartially in the nation’s
capital.
“While I’m confident these ob-
jectives can be met, it is critical to
TRIAL FROM B1 divorce politics from these cases,
and DOJ needs to be mindful of
that peril to show the public that
each defendant is on trial for their
own individual conduct and not
the rhetoric of others,” Sherwin
said.
Who is Guy Reffitt, and what
is he accused of?
For Reffitt — who demanded to
face trial last fall against his attor-
ney’s advice to wait to review
more evidence — either convic-
tion or acquittal will free him
from pre trial detention at the D.C.
jail, where he has complained of
harsh conditions. Fellow inmates,
his son and his own published
letters suggest his views have
grown more radical while behind
bars.
“There was no insurrection, no
conspiracy, no sinister plan and
no reason to think otherwise,”
Reffitt wrote in a letter from jail
published in May by ProPublica.
Last week, in a letter posted on
Telegram, Reffitt wrote that he
was “prepared to stare down the
barrel of tyranny and receive the
bullet of freedom,” Washington
CBS affiliate WUSA 9 reported.
Reffitt is among an estimated
2,000 individuals who authorities
say breached police barricades
and laid siege to the Capitol after
Trump urged supporters to march
to Congress to overturn what he
falsely called a stolen election.
In court filings, the FBI and
prosecutors say Reffitt, carrying
plastic flex-cuffs and wearing
body armor, a blue jacket and a
motorcycle helmet mounted with
a camera, was captured on a Reu-
ters news video holding his hand
up at the West Front of the Capitol
as a police officer sprayed him in
the face. The video goes on to
show Reffitt flushing his eyes
with drops and a bottle of water
and resting as rioters behind him
wielded sticks and wooden poles,
prosecutors said.
Following his arrest 13 days
after the riot, a U.S. magistrate
judge jailed Reffitt until trial, cit-
ing his apparent planning for
armed political violence before
and after Jan. 6, 2021.
“The fight has only just begun,”
he allegedly told two recruits he
met at the Capitol via encrypted
chat three days later. He added
that he had created a new security
business to circumvent gun lawsand obtain high-grade weapons
and ammunition available to law
enforcement.
Four days after that, after a
leader of the Texas Three Percen-
ters was questioned by law en-
forcement, Reffitt allegedly di-
rected other members to destroy
evidence and be ready for future
violence, and he kept an unregis-
tered silencer in a safe, prosecu-
tors have said.
“We had thousands of weapons
and fired no rounds yet showed
numbers. The next time we will
not be so cordial,” Reffitt wrote
others, prosecutors said.
Reffitt told FBI agents in de-
fense that he brought a disassem-
bled pistol to D.C. and that he
went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 but
“did not go inside,” according to
court filings. His court-appointed
attorney, William L. Welch III,
said there is no evidence that
Reffitt carried a loaded firearm.
“My client likes to talk. He’s got
a bit of an ego. He brags,” Welch
said at a bond hearing. “But some-
times words are just words. ...
There are offenses that cross the
line, but it still does not mean that
they are an actual threat.”
Reffitt appeared Monday in
U.S. District Court in D.C. wearing
a western-style tan sport coat,
blue jeans, checkered dress shirt,
white T-shirt and dark hair pulled
in a tight ponytail, and was sup-
ported in court by his wife, his
older daughter, and another man
and woman.
He appeared relaxed at the de-
fense table, partially removing his
mask with a genial smile each
time a potential juror was asked if
they knew or recognized him, and
periodically taking off dark-
framed eyeglasses.
A petroleum industry rig man-
ager and consultant made jobless
by the 2020 pandemic shutdown,
Reffitt grew angered by Black
Lives Matter racial justice pro-
tests, which his children support-
ed, his family has said. He discov-
ered the Three Percenters, a de-
centralized militia extremist
movement named in 2008 after
the myth that just 3 percent of the
population fought the British in
the American Revolution and
founded on the idea that armed
“patriots” should protect Ameri-
cans from the tyranny of big gov-
ernment, including restrictive
gun laws, pandemic shutdownsand racial justice protests.
Reffitt vetted new members
and gathered “intel” on BLM ac-
tivists for the Texas Three Percen-
ters and mobilized at Trump’s call
after the election, according to
court filings.
When Trump invited support-
ers in December to a “wild” rally
in Washington on Jan. 6, Reffitt’s
son warned the FBI that Reffitt
was “going to do some serious
damage” to federal lawmakers.
On the drive there, Reffitt talked
about “dragging those people out
of the Capitol by their ankles” and
installing a new government, the
FBI said.What will the trial look like?
Reffitt’s trial is the highest-pro-
file to be held in Washington in
two years. It will be held with
pandemic safeguards such as
plexiglass partitions; jurors seat-
ed six feet apart in what is nor-
mally the public gallery; the
masking of participants; and the
public and media members al-
lowed to observe by video feed
from other rooms. Like most Jan.
6 defendants at the D.C. jail, Ref-
fitt has declined coronavirus vac-
cination. His lawyer said he has
been infected.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey
S. Nestler and Risa Berkower in
court filings have said the govern-
ment will set the stage for jurors
using a half-hour video montage
of the riot as it progressed. They
will also include at least 40 min-
utes of surveillance video of Ref-
fitt, police, rioters and Vice Presi-
dent Mike Pence and 31 minutes
of panoramic video recorded by
Reffitt’s helmet camera.
Three police officers will testify
about their alleged confrontation
with Reffitt and others using rub-
ber bullets and pepper ball pro-
jectiles. Prosecutors also plan to
call a fellow Texas militia member
who they say traveled to Washing-
ton and back with Reffitt.
Defendants and their attorneys
will be gauging to what extend the
Jan. 6 attack’s partisan dimension
scrambles the usual calculation
that juries drawn from liberal-
leaning D.C. are sympathetic to
defendants. They’ll also weigh
whether Democratic-appointed
judges who may ordinarily be
defense-friendly or Republican
appointees who are normally pro-
prosecution and pro-law-and-or-Jury selection begins in closely watched Jan. 6 trial
der will remain so.
Most critically, the U.S. attor-
ney’s office could fail to prove its
case to jurors. Federal prosecu-
tors in D.C. abandoned charges
against more than 200 protesters
detained in mass arrests the day
of Trump’s presidential inaugura-
tion in January 2017 in downtown
Washington, after the govern-
ment struggled in initial trials to
tie individuals to specific damag-
es or acts of vandalism as charged,
resulting in acquittals.
It is unclear whether Reffitt’s
defense will cite his political
views or reasons for going to the
Capitol. In bond hearings, his at-
torney and his family have de-
scribed the shattering impact of
Jan. 6 on his family and of the
pandemic on his livelihood.
If Reffitt casts himself as a
persecuted “political prisoner”
and is convicted, “I would expect
other guilty pleas to start happen-
ing quickly, because it’s the true
believers” like him who have
passed on plea deals to date, said
Shanlon Wu, a former D.C. federal
prosecutor.
Meanwhile, the prosecution
may have to contend with unreal-
istic juror expectations that the
sheer quantity of video available
will reveal a “smoking gun.” Some
experts warn the government
may have overreached or over-
charged individuals in their pur-
suit of leverage in plea negotia-
tions, possibly jeopardizing the
Justice Department’s credibility if
jurors balk at whether a grainy
image of a shiny object is really a
handgun as Reffitt allegedly
claimed to his family, say, or if a
hotheaded father would trulythreaten to harm his children.
But charging an array of offens-
es enables prosecutors to bring in
evidence painting a broader pic-
ture of a defendant’s actions.
Many Jan. 6 felony cases charge
such an array of illegal activities
that an acquittal on one count
“doesn’t indicate a domino effect,”
Wu said.
“The government has a margin
of error,” Wu said, “The test will be
sentences and penalties, not nec-
essarily clean sweeps.”
If convicted, Reffitt could face
years in prison depending on the
count, with charges against him
punishable by a maximum of five
to 20 years behind bars.
Still, the emotional heart of the
trial may be the appearances of
Reffitt’s family as witnesses.
After observing that wrench-
ing dynamic in tear-filled testi-
mony by Reffitt’s wife and then-
16-year-old daughter in a bond
hearing last March, U.S. Magis-
trate Judge Zia M. Faruqui con-
cluded, “People can have different
political views, and we still have
to deal with each other as family,
and frankly, we are an American
family. And my heart is broken. I
see your family suffering, I see
American families suffering.”
But Faruqui denied bond, say-
ing Reffitt came to the Capitol
“armed and ready for battle” and
left it encouraging others to de-
stroy evidence and join an anti-
government group, saying he
could circumvent firearms laws.
“My concern is that it takes one
person to bring Mr. Reffitt into a
frenzy or a concern, and that will
lead him to making a bad deci-
sion,” Faruqui said.JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump’s face appears on large screens as
supporters rally Jan. 6, 2021, near the White House.BY DAN MORSEA Gaithersburg shopping mall
employee fatally stabbed last
week was attacked “without
provocation” by a 25-year-old ac-
quaintance who had reportedly
been hearing voices recently and
believed he was living outside his
own body, according to new po-
lice allegations filed in court.
Trenton Flowers-Jackson,
charged with first-degree murder
after being arrested over the
weekend, made a brief court
appearance Monday during
which attorneys said he would
receive a psychiatric evaluation
while he continues being held
without bond.
Police assert that shortly be-
fore 11 a.m. on Feb. 21, he walked
into a Metro by T-Mobile store
inside the Lakeforest Mall where
Jose Alexander Maldonado, 23,
was working. Flowers-Jackson
“immediately began stabbing the
victim,” detectives alleged in the
court filing. “The suspect contin-
ued to stab the victim as the
victim attempted to run out of
the store.”
Maldonado instead fell to the
ground. Officers who arrived
tried to treat his wounds and
asked if he knew who had
stabbed him. “Trent, Trent,” Mal-
donado allegedly said.
He was taken to a hospital
where he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy showed he had been
cut and stabbed in the face, ear,
stomach, shoulder and back, de-
tectives said.
The assailant appears to have
come to the mall with both a
knife and a hammer. As he re-
peatedly stabbed the victim, ac-
cording to store video cited in
court records, the hammer fell to
the floor. The suspect picked up
the hammer before fleeing, po-
lice said. There is no mention in
the court records of a knife or
hammer being recovered by po-
lice.
The court filings show Mont-
gomery County police had two
recent contacts with Flowers-
Jackson.
On Jan. 12, his mother called
police to ask them to check on her
son, according to court filings.
“The mother advised her son
‘has been showing signs of psy-
chosis, hearing voices and be-lieves he is outside his body and
having delusions,’ ” detectives
wrote in an arrest affidavit. Offi-
cers went to Flowers-Jackson’s
apartment on Siesta Key Way in
Rockville, where he lived by him-
self, records state. Detectives re-
viewed body-camera video cap-
tured by their colleagues.
“Officers spoke to Trenton
Flowers-Jackson and he advised
he was OK and that he did not
need any help,” the detectives
wrote.
One month later, on Feb. 12,
Flowers-Jackson himself called
the police and said his computer
had been hacked and he was
being stalked. A responding offi-
cer came out to check, and the
interaction was also recorded
and reviewed by detectives.
“Flowers-Jackson advised the re-
sponding officer that ‘somebody
has been stalking my computer’
and ‘my phone is being redirect-
ed,’ ” the arrest affidavit states.
Flowers-Jackson appeared in
court Monday via video feed from
jail. An attorney representing
him, Lucy Larkins, said correc-
tions officials indicated they
wanted him to undergo a psychi-atric evaluation.
“We will also be arranging for a
doctor to meet with him,” Larkins
said.
Larkins did not address the
allegations against Flowers-Jack-
son. She requested that a sched-
uled bond review for him be
waived, which District Judge
Amy Bills granted.
Detectives pieced together
their case based on the victim’s
alleged identification of the stab-
ber as “Trent,” mall video, cell-
phone records and by speaking
with a close friend of Maldonado.
Video of the stabbing does not
appear to show the attacker’s
entire face, according to court
records, and there is no mention
of w itnesses t o the attack other
than Maldonado.
The friend, identified in court
records by his initials, said Mal-
donado had introduced him to a
man named “Trent” a couple of
years ago, and Trent subsequent-
ly became convinced the friend
had hacked into his computer.
The friend said his communica-
tion with Trent stopped at that
time.
He added that Maldonado —about three weeks ago — brought
up the name again.
“Do you remember Trent?”
Maldonado asked, according to
the friend. “He said you were
breaking into his computer.”
The two didn’t talk any more
about Trent, other than to agree
that he “was crazy,” detectives
wrote.
The friend also said video of
the stabbing showed an assailant
who walked “exactly like Trent,”
detectives alleged. Police found
no evidence of an actual comput-
er hacking.
Surveillance video showed the
attacker to be “heavy-set,” but his
face was obscured by a blue
medical mask and a hood from
his jacket, according to the arrest
affidavit.
Investigators compared video
from the mall with the earlier
body-worn police videos of Flow-
ers-Jackson, and found the
i mages “extremely similar,” po-
lice allege. A check of Maryland
Motor Vehicle Administration
records revealed Flowers-Jack-
son to be 5 feet 10 inches and 285
pounds.
Investigators also came to be-lieve Flowers-Jackson had come
to the phone store just before 6
p.m. the day before the homicide,
when he asked a female employee
if she was working alone and
quickly left, according to court
records. The investigators
learned that Maldonado had left
the store just minutes earlier. The
clothing worn by the store visitor
matched clothing of the attacker
seen on video of the stabbing the
following day.
It is not clear if attorneys for
Flowers-Jackson will pursue a
defense of “not criminally re-
sponsible,” which is Maryland’s
version of the insanity plea.
In Maryland, people can be
deemed not criminally responsi-
ble if they essentially did not
understand that what they were
doing was wrong. More specifi-
cally, the law reads: “A defendant
is not criminally responsible for
criminal conduct if, at the time of
that conduct, the defendant, be-
cause of a mental disorder or
mental retardation, lacks sub-
stantial capacity to: 1) appreciate
the criminality of that conduct,
or 2) conform that conduct to the
requirements of law.”MARYLAND
Man fatally stabbed shopping mall worker ‘without provocation,’ police say
violence, with after-school en-
richment programs, food insecu-
rity assistance and pretrial diver-
sion efforts for youths facing
criminal charges.
“We want to make sure we are
imagining ways we can create
positive outcomes for youth and
adults alike who are at risk for
committing violent crimes,” Al-
sobrooks said. “We realize this
problem is complex. We are us-
ing multiple weapons to address
it.”
She also made an urgent plea
to county parents to get more
involved in their children’s lives,
to talk and listen to them, and to
help discover the issues driving
youth violence.
In early February, Prince
George’s and D.C. officials high-
lighted an extraordinary rise in
carjackings in their jurisdictionssince the onset of the pandemic
in 2020.
County police recorded nearly
400 such crimes last year, com-
pared with 100 reports in 2019,
and early in 2022 about half the
people police arrested for car-
jackings were juveniles, officials
had said.
County Police Chief Malik Aziz
said his department will contin-
ue to target violent crime in an
effort to bring justice to victims
and their families.
But Aziz said he also recogniz-
es the need for “a holistic, wrap-
around approach.”
Police officials will partner
with the Boys and Girls Club of
Greater Washington and the Po-
lice Athletic League to provide
programs and activities through-
out the year, Aziz said. The
department also plans to host aroundtable discussion to hear
from youths about crime issues
and how police interact with
young people, the chief said.
The anti-violence collabora-
tive will be headed by the Rev.
Tony Lee, pastor of the Commu-nity of Hope AME Church, who
said that the strategy is to do
“systemic work” modeled after
an approach used in Oakland,
Calif.
It will attempt to combine
efforts from faith groups andnonprofit, for-profit and govern-
ment organizations.
The plan, Lee said, will employ
“three legs to this stool” — vio-
lence interrupters hired to em-
bed in communities to resolve
conflicts as they arise, the newly
formed task force and the grant
funding for the 16 nonprofits.
The “Hope Collective” will
provide grant funding for the
nonprofit groups and is designed
to address issues such as health
care, housing and mental health
resources, Alsobrooks said.
The county executive appoint-
ed 20 people to serve on the
violence prevention task force to
create “innovative solutions and
strategies,” she said. The appoin-
tees include parents of gun vio-
lence victims, community activ-
ists and teachers.
“You can’t arrest your way out
of this problem,” Lee said. “We
can’t do this in our individual
silos.”
Lee added: “We can stem the
tide of the violence in our com-
munities. We can do this, but we
have to do this together.”BY CLARENCE WILLIAMSPrince George’s County offi-
cials will launch p rograms —
including grant funding for a
handful of nonprofit organiza-
tions — targeted toward youth
crime prevention as the county
grapples with an uptick in car-
jackings and other violence,
County Executive Angela D. Also-
brooks announced Monday.
The new effort represents a
strategy to work across govern-
ment agencies with the forma-
tion of the Hope in Action
A nti-Violence Project, which will
include funding 16 community
groups and creating a violence
prevention task force, said Also-
brooks (D).
Alsobrooks outlined plans to
provide an array of services for
“targeted care” to reduce gun
MARYLAND
Prince George’s to start programs
targeted at stemming youth violence
BILL O'LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz speaks alongside
County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) in early February.