4 more charged in Oath Keepers conspiracy case over Capitol riots
31 May 2021
The Department of Justice has added a further four defendants to its conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers over the far-right group's alleged role in the U.S. Capitol riots, a new indictment released Sunday shows.
State of play: Prosecutors have laid criminal charges against at least 19 suspected Oath Keepers or associates in the largest case against any of the extremist groups that took part in the insurrection, per the Washington Post, which obtained the indictment made public by the D.C. District Court.
- These include Jon Ryan Schaffer, 53, the only Oath Keepers member known to have pleaded guilty over the deadly Jan. 6 siege.
What's new: The newly released indictment shows multiple charges were laid against:
- William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee, Florida; Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, Fla., and Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Fla., who appeared before magistrates in the state on Thursday. The name of a fourth defendant was redacted.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.