Supporters of President Donald Trump stopped Congress in its tracks five years ago when rioters, including a number from the Jacksonville area, overran the U.S. Capitol.
The crush of protesters temporarily shut down the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, interrupting a session where Congress eventually certified former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
At least 11 people from Jacksonville and nearby counties were charged in connection with the riot, where Floridians were exceptionally common.
This image from inside the U.S. Capitol was part of the initial court filing against Rachael Pert and Dana Joe Winn, who the FBI identified as the woman wearing a flag like a cape and the man with her carrying an American flag.
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“It was a wild day,” Jacksonville native Katie Schoettler, then an aide to U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., had reflected the day after staffers like her were put on lockdown while police struggled with people ready to fight.
Two local men, Daniel Paul Gray of Jacksonville and Anthony Sargent of St. Augustine, were serving prison sentences when Trump issued pardons immediately after being sworn back into office Jan. 20, 2025.
Gray, who later said “the police would have been well within their rights to shoot me,” pleaded guilty to assaulting a female officer, while Sargent pleaded to a felony charge of civil disorder as well as misdemeanor charges. Prosecutors said at the time that Sargent grabbed and pushed a police officer to keep him from detaining another rioter, shover two officers who were retreating to safety and twice threw a heavy object at Capitol doors.
A Fleming Island man, Marcus Smith, was sentenced to a year and a day behind bars for his part in wrecking a 168-year-old interior door that prosecutors priced at $21,000. But he was given that sentence just days before Trump issued pardons and hadn’t had to report to prison yet.
Others had already been released from lockup, like Baker County resident Bradley Weeks, who pleaded to obstructing an official proceeding and misdemeanor counts, or had completed probation like Middleburg residents Dana Joe Winn and Rachael Pert, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building.
This image of a man struggling to get past a police barrier at the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot was part of a complaint filed in federal court in Washigton against Garth Nathaniel Walton.
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Other people’s never-proven charges were dropped without trial after Trump’s pardon was issued. Yulee resident Garth Walton’s felony case involving struggling with police was dropped the day after the pardon, and Putnam County resident Dylan Swinehart had been arrested a few months earlier on a misdemeanor charge that went away.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 5 years ago, rioters from Jacksonville helped shut down U.S. Capitol