A man from Cleveland, Tennessee, has been caught on charges that he broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Chad Hedgcock is the second man from Cleveland to be arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol in 2021. He is also the most recent of more than twenty-two Tennesseans to be charged in the case; some of them have already been found guilty and given years in jail.
Hedgock was pulled over by federal police in Chattanooga on May 24 and charged with four misdemeanors. The investigators say that Hedgock was in the Capitol building for five minutes.
A complaint connected to Hedgcock’s arrest warrant that can be found online in court records says that at about 2:55 p.m., security video shows him entering the Capitol building through the Parliamentarian Doors while recording with his cell phone. At 3 p.m., Hedgcock left through the same door he came in through after walking around for a while.
The lawsuit says that Hedgcock went up to the Senate Wing Door around 3:13 p.m. but did not go inside.
The complaint says that the FBI was able to identify Hedgcock by looking at his phone records, online stories, and social media posts where he was seen wearing a “Keep America Great” hat. He also seemed to be wearing this hat while he was in the Capitol.
Agents used an article about his wife’s arrest that was put on a local conservative blog in 2022 to figure out who he was. His wife was charged with criminal trespassing in February of that year because she reportedly wouldn’t wear a mask in a hospital.
Twice in 2022, agents tried to talk to him, but he refused both times, telling one agent, “We don’t talk to cops,” according to the lawsuit.
Court records show that the other guy from Cleveland, Joseph Lino Padilla, is accused of fighting police at a barricade outside the Capitol and then throwing a flagpole at a group of police officers who were huddled in a doorway.
Padilla was found guilty of several crimes and given a prison sentence of more than six years.
People protested outside of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, so that a joint session of Congress could not count the Electoral College votes and confirm that President Joe Biden had won the 2020 election. Former President Donald Trump, who lied when he said the election was “stolen” from him, gave them hope. During the attack, several people died, including one person who was shot and killed.
