Jan6: The American Gulag

[grarpamp]

Anything to persecute Freedom, including imprisoning
innocent political opponents...


Video Used to Charge Jan. 6 Defendant Exonerates Him on Charge of
                        Assaulting Police, Attorney Says

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-video-used-to-charge-jan-6-defendant-exonerates-him-on-charge-of-assaulting-police-attorney-says_4619418.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/t-january-6
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.234220/gov.uscourts.dcd.234220.166.0_2.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.234220/gov.uscourts.dcd.234220.191.0_2.pdf
https://www.theepochtimes.com/video-investigator-gary-mcbride-on-a-marathon-hunt-for-january-6-secrets_4611779.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/c-american-thought-leaders
https://www.theepochtimes.com/c-larry-elder-with-epoch-times
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-real-story-of-jan-6-documentary_4596670.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-schedules-major-announcement-news-outlets-warn-of-radical-plan-to-drain-the-swamp_4621371.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/kash-patel-govt-docs-shatter-insurrection-narrative-why-did-pelosi-bowser-and-capitol-police-decline-national-guard-days-before-jan-6_4615875.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/sheriffs-launch-movement-to-investigate-2000-mules-election-fraud-evidence-richard-mack_4626231.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/betsy-devos-why-the-us-department-of-education-should-be-abolished_4612442.html

   After nearly a year in jail, court motion seeks his release

   Maybe it was the death threat delivered by a fellow law-enforcement
   officer while he stood shackled in belly chains.

   Perhaps it was being described as a “terrorist” by a federal judge who
   will preside over his trial.

   It could have been being released on bail by a U.S. magistrate judge in
   Tennessee, only to be ordered held until trial by a U.S. district judge in
   Washington D.C.

   Former sheriff's deputy Ronald Colton McAbee, 28, of Tennessee, has faced
   a difficult road since being indicted for alleged criminal actions at the
   U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

   Arguably the most trying situation for McAbee was being denied bail for
   nearly a year based on video evidence that his attorney now says
   exonerates him.

   “What makes the government’s case weak is the fact that the videos
   actually exonerate Mr. McAbee of the very allegations made against him,
   and Mr. McAbee is motivated to appear for trial, take the stand and
   narrate those videos for [the] jury,” wrote attorney William Shipley in
   a May 2022 motion to have his client released from jail.

   McAbee, a former sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee and Georgia with more
   than seven years of law-enforcement experience as a deputy and
   correctional officer, was charged by federal prosecutors with seven
   alleged crimes.

   Charges included assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer, two
   counts of civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building
   or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive
   conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous
   weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds
   with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and committing an act of physical
   violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

   McAbee was outside the Lower West Terrace tunnel during some of the worst
   violence on January 6. Several times he tried to render lifesaving aid to
   a dying Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia. His interactions with
   Metropolitan Police Department officers resulted in most of the charges
   and served as justification for a D.C. judge to jail him until trial.

   Epoch Times PhotoEpoch Times Photo Ronald McAbee renders aid to a
   pulseless Rosanne Boyland outside the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the
   U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. "He just was in life-saving mode," Sarah
   McAbee said of her husband. (Graphic by The Epoch Times)

   McAbee was arrested on Aug. 17, 2021, in Tennessee. At a detention hearing
   on Aug. 26, prosecutors argued that McAbee assaulted Metropolitan Police
   Department Officer Andrew Wyatt. They said after Wyatt fell at the tunnel
   entrance, McAbee—who had a broken shoulder from a car accident nine days
   earlier—pulled him down the concrete stairs into a hostile crowd.

   The prosecutor played a video for the court, but there was no sound,
   according to Sarah McAbee, Ronald McAbee’s wife. The lack of audio would
   later prove to be a crucial element of the story.

   After the detention hearing was continued on Sept. 8, 2021, Magistrate
   Judge Jeffery Frensley ruled against the U.S. Department of Justice and
   ordered McAbee released pending trial.

No Danger to Community

   “I do not believe that Mr. McAbee poses a future danger to the community
   if he were to be released between now and the time that he resolves this
   case,” Judge Frensley said. “And the government, despite my request
   that they provide me any evidence that he's presented any sort of a danger
   to the community, have been able to point to absolutely nothing beyond the
   events around and during January the 6th.”

   Epoch Times PhotoEpoch Times Photo Ronald McAbee was a deputy for the
   Williamson County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee when he went to the U.S.
   Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Sarah McAbee)

   Judge Frensley said what he saw on the video was open to interpretation.
   McAbee’s guilt or innocence could not be part of the consideration for
   bond, he said.

   “We have a system that presumes innocence, and for me to make a decision
   where I become judge, jury, and executioner all in the same role without
   affording him the rights he's entitled to under the constitution is
   inappropriate,” Frensley said. “And that's the important distinction
   between the bond decision and the decision on guilt that will follow at a
   trial.”

   That victory for McAbee was short-lived. Prosecutors filed an emergency
   appeal the same day in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Senior
   District Judge Emmet Sullivan stayed Frensley’s order and scheduled
   hearings on the government’s motion to keep McAbee behind bars until
   trial.

   During a hearing on Sept. 22, 2021, Sullivan seemed to telegraph his
   eventual decision to hold McAbee without bond.

   When being shown a video with McAbee wearing body armor with a patch that
   read “Sheriff,” Judge Sullivan said, “That’s pretty outrageous,”
   according to the official hearing transcript. A short time later, Sullivan
   said, “These videos are very disturbing.” He made several statements
   agreeing with the prosecutor’s assessment of the evidence.

   Sullivan then suggested McAbee is a terrorist.

   “So it appears clearly to this court that the defendant is pulling the
   officer back into the crowd of other terrorists,” Sullivan said,
   according to the transcript.

   After another hearing on Oct. 13, 2021, Sullivan reversed Frensely’s
   order and ruled that McAbee should not be released pending trial. Sullivan
   said he would issue a written ruling, which was released more than two
   months later on Dec. 21, 2021.

   While Frensley told prosecutors they did not show evidence that McAbee had
   done anything to prove he was a danger during the eight months between
   January 6 and his August arrest, Sullivan ruled that the only way to
   protect the community is to keep McAbee in jail.

   “The court concludes that clear and convincing evidence supports a
   finding that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably
   assure the safety of the community,” Judge Sullivan wrote (pdf) in his
   41-page ruling.

   Sarah McAbee was stunned.

   Epoch Times PhotoEpoch Times Photo Ronald McAbee falls on top of
   Metropolitan Police Department Officer Andrew Wyatt after being pulled
   from behind on January 6, 2021. (Christopher Chern via Storyful/Graphic by
   The Epoch Times)

   “It’s just the craziest situation, them saying he's a danger to the
   community when he's been a law enforcement officer and never has had
   stripes on his record, let alone a speeding ticket,” Sarah McAbee told
   The Epoch Times.

   A break in McAbee’s case came when video investigator Gary McBride of
   Decatur, Texas, studied the bodycam footage shown in court, except with
   the audio track turned on. It painted a vastly different picture of what
   took place, McBride told The Epoch Times.

   “The prosecutors did not play the audio of AW [Andrew Wyatt] and McAbee
   talking during this point,” McBride said in a video he made about the
   evidence. “McAbee is trying to save AW. Prosecutors didn’t play that
   in court.”

   McBride said his analysis showed McAbee did not pull the officer down the
   stairs, but was swept backward and lost his balance, due to two protesters
   pulling on the officer’s legs. McAbee was standing over Wyatt at the
   time. As a result, McAbee fell on top of Wyatt and was over him for about
   25 seconds.

   While McAbee was on top of Wyatt, bystanders called him a traitor,
   ostensibly for helping the officer. When someone in the crowd tried to
   grab at Wyatt, McAbee shouted, “No!” and “Quit!”

   “At that point, my husband just saw an officer down and an officer
   needing help, because the first thing he says, when he pops in around the
   tunnel before he gets around the rail is, ‘Hey, you guys have a man
   down,’” Sarah McAbee said. “They literally did nothing to help that
   guy. So he's the one who jumped into action.”

   Sarah said she was relieved when she learned the audio track from the
   evidence videos backs up what her husband told her that day.

Story is Consistent

   “My husband's story has not changed from January 6. There's actually a
   picture of him that they have on the FBI website of him on the phone,”
   she said. “I know that's a phone call with me about everything that just
   went down.

   “His story has not changed from that day to today. He's just not a liar.
   That's just not who he is and even the little details have always remained
   the same.”

   McBride and Sarah McAbee said the audio track should have been disclosed
   to the defense as exculpatory evidence.

   If you listen to the audio, he says, ‘Hey, I'm one of you. Let me know
   when you're ready to get up. I'm going to help you up.’ And they get up
   together,” Sarah McAbee said. "That's not him assaulting anybody. It’s
   the same videos, they just wouldn't play the audio in court, because the
   audio is so detrimental to their case.”

   According to the transcript developed by McAbee's legal team, after
   someone in the crowd shouted, "[expletive] traitor!" McAbee asked Officer
   Wyatt, "You ready?" and then added, "I'm one of you. I'm one of you."

   Wyatt replied, "Let go of me, man!" McAbee then told him, "I'm helping
   you." Wyatt replied, "I know. I know. Help me up."

   William Miller, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s
   Office for the District of Columbia, declined to comment. “We typically
   do not comment on cases beyond our public filings and statements to the
   Court and have no comment,” Miller said in an email statement to The
   Epoch Times.

A Difficult Journey

   The road since January 6 has been a rough one for the McAbees. Ronald
   McAbee was in a serious automobile accident on Dec. 27, 2020, and suffered
   a broken shoulder. His decision to attend President Donald Trump’s
   speech wasn’t necessarily a popular one in the McAbee home.

   McAbee asked a friend to order him a pair of motorcycle gloves that have
   carbon-fiber reinforcements in the knuckles and fingers. The gloves are
   designed to protect the hands from flying debris while riding, or from
   injury in the event of a crash. Prosecutors classified the gloves as a
   “deadly weapon” in the charges against McAbee.

   Epoch Times PhotoEpoch Times Photo The bodycam of Metropolitan Police
   Department Officer Andrew Wyatt shows Ronald McAbee after McAbee was
   pulled on top of him at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Metropolitan
   Police Department/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

   According to McAbee’s filings in the case, he wanted to have the gloves
   because there had been attacks on Trump supporters by Antifa at other
   events in Washington. There is no evidence he used the gloves in any
   attack or offensive manner, his attorney said.

   The ordeal has been a trying one for Sara McAbee. She married her high
   school sweetheart in 2016 and had recently moved back to Tennessee from
   Georgia to be closer to family. Then came January 6.

   When her husband was initially arrested and jailed, she drove five hours
   to a detention center in Kentucky to see him. She said she spoke to
   someone at the jail the night before to make sure it was okay to visit.
   After a more than five-hour drive, she showed up, only to be told McAbee
   had just left on a bus for another facility.

   Ronald McAbee was flown from Lexington to Atlanta and then to Oklahoma.
   While waiting to board the flight in Atlanta, a law enforcement officer
   guarding McAbee asked about his charges for allegedly assaulting a police
   officer, Sarah McAbee said.

   “He's trying to explain it to him. [The officer] looked at him and said,
   ‘You touch one of my officers, you’re dead,’” she said. “My
   husband is like, ‘You can't threaten me like that. … I’m bound by
   waist chains. What do you think I'm going to do?’”

   McAbee eventually was transferred to the District of Columbia’s Central
   Detention Facility, dubbed by January 6 defendants as the “DC Gulag.”

New Efforts to Secure Freedom

   The motion (pdf) seeking reconsideration of McAbee’s pretrial detention
   is pointed in its criticisms of Judge Sullivan, and accuses prosecutors of
   “misrepresentation of the video evidence.”

   “There is no evidence—it did not happen as admitted by the
   government—that Mr. McAbee assaulted Officer AW while Officer AW was in
   that vulnerable position,” attorney Shipley wrote.

   Epoch Times PhotoEpoch Times Photo Ronald McAbee lets a neighbor boy, 4,
   wear his Cherokee County, Ga., sheriff's uniform. "That little boy just
   beamed with pride," Sarah McAbee said. "That's who my husband is."
   (Courtesy of Sarah McAbee)

   Shipley noted that McAbee was thanked by Metropolitan Police Department
   Officer Steven Sajumon for helping Officer Wyatt get back to the police
   line. “That exchange is captured on the audio of the video submitted
   with this motion,” Shipley wrote. McAbee's previous attorney in
   Tennessee, Isaiah Gant, said the officer told McAbee: "Hey, man, thank
   you. We appreciate you."

   Makhetha Watson, a spokeswoman with the Metropolitan Police Department
   Office of Communications, declined to comment on McAbee's assertions.

   Judge Sullivan made repeated statements that he accepted prosecution
   evidence and believed McAbee guilty, Shipley wrote.

   Sullivan said McAbee allowed his personal beliefs “to override his sworn
   duty to uphold the rule of law as a law enforcement officer and even
   [fought] against officers with whom one would expect he held a mutual
   respect or kinship,” the motion said.

   “That is another pronouncement of Mr. McAbee’s factual guilt by this
   court,” Shipley wrote.

   Sullivan has yet to rule on the motion.

   Sarah McAbee said she is left with many questions after a nearly year-long
   ordeal. How did her husband survive a potentially deadly vehicle crash,
   only to end up in jail from a protest?

   "You just have to believe this is bigger than any of us could ever
   fathom," she said. "And that hopefully, because he does have such a unique
   perspective of being in law enforcement and being inside the jail, and now
   he's on the other side of the wall, maybe reform will come from this if
   enough good men stand."

   She said she is especially proud of her husband for the aid he rendered to
   Boyland. Video shows McAbee assisting another bystander as they gave CPR
   to Boyland after she was pulled away from the police line where she was
   beaten. He helped carry her in front of the police line, then tried
   starting CPR on her again.

   "I would expect nothing less of him. It makes me proud to be his wife to
   know that he, at the expense of himself, tried to save somebody else,"
   Sarah McAbee said. "You know, he just runs into action. ... He just was in
   life-saving mode."


   Joseph M. Hanneman is a reporter for The Epoch Times with a focus on the
   Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol incursion and its aftermath; and general news in the
   State of Wisconsin. His work over a nearly 40-year career has appeared in
   Catholic World Report, the Racine Journal Times, the Wisconsin State
   Journal and the Chicago Tribune.