Antwione Williams, who played a season with the Detroit Lions, is charged with assaulting officers at the U.S. Capitol.
A former N.F.L. linebacker was arrested in Georgia on Thursday on charges that he hit and pushed law enforcement officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, one of the first insurrection-related arrests since President-elect Donald J. Trump won re-election, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.
The former player, Leander Antwione Williams, 31, of Savannah, Ga., who played one season for the Detroit Lions, was among the first rioters to breach a police barricade that had been set up on the northwest side of the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, according to a complaint and arrest warrant prepared by Brad Fisk, a special agent with the F.B.I.
In addition to a felony count of assaulting officers and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder, Mr. Williams faces several misdemeanors relating to disruptive conduct at the Capitol.
Footage from the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, showed Mr. Williams near the front of a crowd a short distance from the U.S. Capitol.
The crowd’s efforts to approach the Capitol were temporarily stymied by a line of police barricades and several law enforcement officers, according to photos included in Mr. Fisk’s report. Then, just after 1 p.m., Mr. Williams was seen again near the front of the crowd, pushing through metal barricades as law enforcement officers retreated.
As he and the crowd continued to push toward the Capitol, Mr. Williams “grabbed and pushed two officers,” Mr. Fisk wrote.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
