WACO, Texas (KWTX) – The McLennan County District Attorney’s Office has dismissed drunken driving and a weapons charge against a Central Texas man convicted and later pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the nation’s Capitol.
Hewitt police arrested Christopher Ray Grider about 11 p.m. July 13, 2025, on misdemeanor DWI and unlawfully carrying a weapon charges.
The DA’s office dismissed those charges, reporting in case disposition records that no alcohol or drugs were detected in Department of Public Safety lab tests. As far as the gun charge, the DA’s office determined the case was “not suitable for prosecution.”
Under Texas law, residents generally can carry a handgun legally without a license, but there are restrictions and other requirements. One of those restrictions makes it an offense for a person with a license to carry a handgun to do so while the person is intoxicated or committing another crime.
Grider’s attorney, Katie Casper, declined comment on the charges being dismissed and said that Grider also would decline comment.
McLennan County District Attorney said in a statement that his office has the legal and ethical obligation to dismiss cases that lack sufficient evidence to prove a crime, although he said he is grateful the officer “took the effort to secure a blood specimen” to aid in the case.
“Following Mr. Grider’s arrest, a crime laboratory tested his blood and found no alcohol or drugs in his system. Those tests take months to come back,” Tetens said. “Once we had the test results, justice demanded that we decline to prosecute him for DWI.
“This case illustrates why the ‘wheels of justice’ appear to move slowly, and also why prosecutors’ burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is much higher than the probable cause standard that applies to police officers on the street,” Tetens said.
According to arrest documents, a Hewitt police officer pulled Grider over after the officer reported he clocked Grider driving 55 mph in a 45 mph zone on Sun Valley Boulevard.
“As soon as I made eye contact with Grider, I observed his eyes were red and glossy,” an arrest affidavit alleges.
Grider told the officer he had a Taurus .38-caliber revolver tucked in the driver’s side door, which the officer confiscated before giving Grider standard field sobriety tests.
The officer noted in the affidavit he “observed numerous clues” indicating Grider was intoxicated and took him to jail on the misdemeanor DWI and unlawfully carrying a weapon charges.
Grider, a Bruceville-Eddy vineyard owner who claims the government misinterpreted his intentions after he entered the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to just less than seven years in prison in May 2023 for his role in the riot at the Capitol in which more than 100 police officers were injured and which resulted in more than $2.8 million in damages.
Grider was released from a federal prison in Bastrop January 2025 after President Donald Trump, who called the rioters “patriots” and “hostages,” pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of all of the 1,500 or more people charged in the insurrection.
Grider was seen on Capitol surveillance video wearing a red “Make America Great cap” with a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag tied around his shoulders. He also was seen on video handing a hard hat to a man, who used it to break a window in a door to the Speaker’s Lobby.
Grider was standing a few feet away when a Capitol police officer shot and killed rioter Ashli Babbitt as she tried to climb through the window of the lobby door. Government prosecutors also charged that Grider tried to shut off the electricity at the Capitol, pressing buttons on an electric utility box while yelling, “Turn the power off.”
Grider pleaded guilty to entering a restricted area and unlawfully parading at the Capitol, while he went to trial on seven other charges, including civil disorder and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., convicted him on all counts and sentenced him to six years and 11 months in prison and ordered him to pay $5,055 in restitution and an $812 fine.
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