The FBI arrested a Florida man on Tuesday who, according to federal officials, set off an explosive device in a Capitol tunnel on January 6 during a fight between Trump supporters and police officers.
Daniel Ball of Homosassa is charged with 12 counts, including assaulting, resisting, or obstructing police with a deadly or dangerous weapon, using an explosive to commit a felony, and blocking law enforcement during a civil disturbance.
He is the only person on trial for the attack on the Capitol on January 6 who is accused of setting off an explosive device.
Authorities say that Ball, who is 38 years old, “worked with other rioters to violently push against fully uniformed police officers who were trying to keep people out of the Capitol Building” and then “threw an explosive device into the entranceway.”
The FBI said that the explosion hurt a number of agents. One person said that they had trouble hearing for months, while another said that the pain of his ears ringing was a 10/10 on the pain scale and that they had trouble hearing for at least two days. The FBI says that another officer said his ears rang for almost three hours and that another officer said his ears rang well into the next day.
An FBI affidavit said, “For many other officers who were interviewed, it was the most memorable thing that happened that day.” “Some cops who were guarding the tunnel when the explosion happened said they could feel the pressure of the blast. Some people thought it was a fragmentation bomb and expected it to be hurt or hurt badly. Some people thought they would die. Some cops’ mental health was hurt by the explosion.”
An FBI explosives and hazardous devices examiner in the Explosives Unit at the FBI laboratory in Huntsville, Alabama, “was not able to conclusively identify the precise dimensions, charge size, or whether the explosive device thrown was improvised or commercially manufactured,” according to the FBI. However, the examiner did find that the device was “capable of causing damage to surrounding property and seriously injuring people in the area of the resulting explosion.”
What Did the FBI Say?
In the affidavit, the FBI said that Ball was caught in Florida a few months after the attack on the Capitol. He was charged with assaulting five civilians and two police officers. The FBI said that he was found guilty and given five years of probation because of what happened.
The FBI said that Ball’s probation officer confirmed his identity for his arrest on Tuesday, which appears to have been done with the help of face recognition technology. The probation officer looked at the picture and said, “That’s Daniel Ball,” the FBI says. According to the supervision officer, Ball still owned the jacket he was wearing on January 6, 2021.
When Ball’s lawyer was asked for a response Tuesday night, he did not answer right away.
On January 6, it was very unusual for the pro-Trump crowd to use bombs.
David Lee Judd lit something that looked like a firework, but it didn’t go off. For his part in the attack on the Capitol, he got more than 212 years in federal jail.
The FBI is still looking for the person or people who left pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national parties on January 6. Shortly before the second anniversary of the riot, the FBI raised the prize to $500,000 for information that leads to the arrest of anyone who helped put the pipe bombs, which did not go off.
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