No charges for BLM activist who took part in breach of Capitol

FPI / January 11, 2021

Authorities in Washington, D.C. said 41 people were arrested on Capitol grounds, where the U.S. Capitol building was breached on Jan. 6. Charges included unlawful entry and unlawful possession of a firearm, according to arrest data.

One person who was part of the crowd of protesters which breached the building is John Earle Sullivan.

Sullivan is a Black Lives Matter activist. He has admitted to media that he had in fact been part of the protest crowd that broke into the Capitol building on Jan. 6.

"Sullivan has not been charged with unlawful entry or any other charges that police say other people who entered the building face," The Epoch Times reported.

There are photographs of Sullivan inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

"His picture is not among those circulated by authorities of persons of interest in the incident. Sullivan said he was detained on Thursday night and questioned about what he saw during the storming of the Capitol," the report said.

The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department didn’t respond to The Epoch Times' request for comment.

Sullivan told KUTV: “Protesters weren’t really, like, trying to burn anything down, they weren’t really trying to break anything, their main motive was to make it into the chambers. Those protesters got really angry and busted through those officers really quickly, and yeah, you could really freely move around, you could go into any room and look out the window, so it was really surreal to see,” he added.

Sullivan recounted being near Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead by a U.S. Capitol Police officer: “There was a glass wall, and she, the woman, was the first person to actually try to get inside. All you see is hands come out the doorways with their guns. … You don’t see their face, nothing. And I literally yell at everybody else, ‘There’s a gun! There’s a gun! Don’t go in there!’ And a shot goes off. And she gets shot as soon as she goes through.”

The U.S. Capitol Police said Thursday that one of its officers fired the shot that killed Babbitt.

As a Black Lives Matter activist, Sullivan on social media has advocated for an armed revolution. He was arrested in July 2020 for making a threat of violence and criminal mischief. He organized a protest with Black Lives Matter activists and members of Antifa. According to the Deseret News, Sullivan damaged vehicles and urged people to block roadways. Video footage captured him threatening to beat a woman.

Free Press International