In a turn of events that should probably shock none of us, a Capitol rioter who bragged that he'd never be caught has, well, been caught.
According to the FBI, Christian Secor, a UCLA student who was seen sitting in former Vice President Mike Pence's chair during the coup attempt, was arrested and charged Tuesday for his involvement in the January 6 incident.
Secor is an avowed White supremacist who started what The Los Angeles Times called "an ultra-right campus organization" at UCLA.
Secor's arrest followed at least 11 people reporting him to the FBI.
One of those tipsters told the FBI that Secor had recently moved back in with his mother in the affluent Orange County suburb of Costa Mesa, ditched his cellphone and repeatedly bragged that he'd never be caught for his participation in the riots.
But images of Secor in Pence's chair had appeared in The New Yorker's widely circulated footage of the riot, and the FBI found other clips of him in security footage. Secor had also live-streamed his participation during the event, and the FBI later found images of him wearing the same jacket he'd worn at the Capitol at a far-right rally in Huntington Beach, CA.
Aided by a SWAT team, the FBI arrested Secor at his mother's house Tuesday morning.
Neighbor Elsa Castillo described the dramatic scene for Los Angeles's CBS2 News:
"I just woke up to the lights flashing. I thought something was going on there. I could hear them say come out, come out. I thought they were evacuating us."
In an affidavit, FBI Special Agent Benjamin Elliott gave a sobering description of Secor's involvement in the riots:
"As a result of Secor and others pushing on the double doors ... the doors opened and dozens of additional rioters flooded into the building. The Capitol Police officers were shoved by the crowd, at times trapped between the doors and the crowd, and eventually pushed out of the way of the oncoming mob."
Secor has repeatedly stirred controversy at UCLA for his outspoken White nationalism.
He has been accused of racism and antisemitism, and started a far-right campus group, America First Bruins, that invited White nationalists to UCLA on several occasions. A Twitter account believed to belong to Secor praises fascism as "epic" and lauds the 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" riots that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer.
And in his livestream fro the Capitol, he identified himself as Scuffed Eliot Rodger, in reference to the man who committed mass murder at Isla Vista, California in 2014.
On Twitter, people applauded Secor's arrest.
Secor was charged by federal prosecutors with assaulting or resisting a police officer, violent entry and remaining on restricted grounds, civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding. He is being held without bail.
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
