The wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has filed a criminal complaint against the alleged organizer of a protest outside their Fairfax County, Virginia, home.
Erin Hawley filed a complaint against Patrick Young, an activist who is part of the Black Lives Matter-affiliated group ShutDownDC. A police spokesperson told ABC News that “probable cause” was found to issue a summons for Young.
Young told ABC on Feb. 5 that he hadn’t yet received the complaint, which was filed in Fairfax County.
According to video footage, at least 20 people gathered at the Hawley home on Jan. 4—two days before the joint session of Congress—while Hawley’s wife and their newborn daughter were at home. The protest was ostensibly organized due to Hawley’s public statements that he would challenge the electoral votes for Pennsylvania.
The crowd yelled “shame on you” and “stand up, fight back” in front of their home. Protesters also knocked on the door, according to footage and Erin Hawley.
“If a summons has been issued, it is outrageous that a rich and powerful person—a United States senator—can go to their magistrate to get a summons to harass a normal person,” Young said.
Video footage taken from the scene shows the senator’s wife opening the front door and telling the crowd to “clear out please.”
“We’ve got neighbors and a baby, thank you,” she is heard saying in the video.
Minutes later, a protester says via a bullhorn that “a few of us are going to go up [to] knock on his door, we can maybe leave some signs, and we'll leave a copy of [the] Constitution in the hopes that Sen. Hawley actually reads it ... and he quits his dangerous attack on our democracy.”
According to The Hill, the group ultimately left after police arrived and told them that demonstrating outside the house was illegal.