House Judiciary Committee Orders Probe Into Assault of Jan. 6 Detainee

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) questions the director of the U.S. Marshals Service about the 2022 assault of Jan. 6 detainee former Sheriff's Deputy Ronald Colton McAbee (in wall photo) during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 14, 2024. Emily Matthews/U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls

The GOP-led House Committee on the Judiciary on May 20 opened an investigation into the September 2022 chemical assault on Jan. 6 detainee Ronald Colton McAbee after the District of Columbia Department of Corrections and the U.S. Marshals Service thwarted Rep. Troy Nehls’ attempts to obtain bodycam footage of the incident.

In a letter to DOC Director Thomas Faust, Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said the department has one week to turn over the bodycam footage and documents related to the McAbee incident or it will face a congressional subpoena.

“It has been over 15 months since Rep. Nehls attempted to obtain the relevant footage, and the committee has serious concerns about the DOC’s continued lack of transparency, obstruction, and unwillingness to work to provide the requested information,” Mr. Jordan wrote.

“While DOC claims to provide for an ‘orderly, safe, secure and humane environment,’ the alleged incident that occurred with Mr. McAbee on September 5, 2022, suggests otherwise,” Mr. Jordan wrote.

“Any allegation of the mistreatment of a federal detainee should be taken seriously and fully investigated.”

Mr. Jordan’s letter also demands records related to any disciplinary actions taken against Lt. Crystal Lancaster, records related to the investigation of the incident, and any documents related to Mr. Nehls’ attempts to obtain bodycam video.

The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Faust’s office for comment but did not receive a reply by press time.

Sprayed in the Face

According to witnesses in the C2B pod at the Central Treatment Facility, Mr. McAbee was walking toward a medical cart to retrieve his prescription medications at about mid-morning on Sept. 5, 2022.

Lt. Lancaster—who was suspended after the incident and has since been fired—shouted at Mr. McAbee to put on a COVID-19 mask. He did not comply and kept walking to retrieve his medication from the cart.

After Mr. McAbee took his medication, Ms. Lancaster sprayed him with oleoresin capsicum (OC), a harsh chemical irritant.

Ronald "Colt" McAbee with his "No. 1 neighborhood fan." The former sheriff's deputy was denied bail for the second time on Sept. 3, 2022. Sarah McAbee/Special to The Epoch Times

As he was writhing on the floor in pain, Mr. McAbee’s hands were cuffed behind his back by a jail guard. Ms. Lancaster then fired a second blast of OC spray into Mr. McAbee’s face at point-blank range, several witnesses said.

Several other detainees, including Ryan Nichols and Bart Shively, were sprayed with OC, handcuffed, and placed in isolation pods, witnesses told family members.

Mr. McAbee was not given access to a proper shower to wash off the chemical irritant for more than 12 hours, his wife, Sarah McAbee, told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Nehls (R-Texas) said it “remains my mission to uncover this footage to get to the bottom of what really happened between Mr. McAbee and Lt. Lancaster.”

“Every detainee, including J6 detainees, deserves to be treated humanely and receive due process,” Mr. Nehls said in a statement. “I thank my colleague, Chairman Jordan, for joining me in this effort.”

During a February hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, Mr. Nehls demanded that the bodycam video be turned over during an exchange with Ronald Davis, director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Marshals are responsible for the care and safety of those in federal pretrial detention.

Mr. Davis indicated his staff would work with Mr. Nehls “to see how we can be responsive to your request.” But by April, the video still had not been released.

‘Got to Subpoena It’

“If I’m sitting here a week and we don’t have any answers, then I’m gonna say to Jim Jordan, ‘We’ve got to subpoena it,’” Mr. Nehls said in a Feb. 15 interview. “I mean, I will get so far up [Mr. Davis’s] [expletive] that he’s not going to want that.”

Mr. Nehls in January 2023 filed federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the D.C. Department of Corrections, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and the Marshals Service. All were denied.

Ms. McAbee said she is glad to see more action being taken to investigate what happened to her husband, a former Williamson County, Tennessee sheriff’s deputy,  and to release the video.

“I believe they are afraid of the court of public opinion once it’s released,” Ms. McAbee told The Epoch Times in an interview. “What’s on there is bad for them.”

On Feb. 29, Mr. McAbee was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison for his conviction on seven Jan. 6 criminal counts. The U.S. Department of Justice had asked for a prison term of 12.5 years.

Although a jury found Mr. McAbee guilty of assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer, the officer’s bodycam video showed Mr. McAbee was protecting him from rioters and trying to get him back to the police line at the front of the Lower West Terrace tunnel.

Mr. McAbee never should have been held in pretrial detention, his wife contends, because a federal magistrate in Tennessee ordered him released pending trial. Federal prosecutors scrambled to obtain a stay of the magistrate’s order from a D.C.-based judge, who then ordered Mr. McAbee’s continued detention.

United States District Judge Emmet Sullivan later made headlines in the case by calling Mr. McAbee a terrorist while the issue of pretrial detention was still pending before him.

The judge was eventually removed from the case.