A Wisconsin man arrested for allegedly attacking police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and telling a friend there is “definitely something satisfying about pepper-spraying cops in riot gear and watching them run” faces six criminal charges in federal court.
Riley Douglas Kasper, 23, of Pulaski, was charged in a criminal complaint in Washington D.C. with assaulting, resisting, or impeding police with a dangerous weapon to inflict bodily injury; civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and several related offenses.
Kasper is seen on YouTube videos spraying orange pepper spray at police. He then bragged about his actions in private Facebook messages, prosecutors said.
“I pepper sprayed three cops so bad they got undressed and went home,” Kasper wrote to someone identified only as “N.L.”
“Gently brazed many others several times. I basically organized my own little militia and we [expletive] took over Congress.”
Kasper described the chaotic scenes inside the Capitol.
“We got inside the capital [sic] then they started shooting rubber bullets at people’s heads, even when me and another guy were carrying a barely conciliatory dude with blood dripping off his knees from his head to the ambulance, they kept shooting at the back of the three of us,” he wrote in one message.
Kasper told Facebook user “S.B.” the keys to successfully attacking police.
“Dude, cops are [expletive], they absolutely do not want to get pepper-sprayed!” he said. “You charge that line and start spraying, they start running for cover like you’re coming at them with an AK.”
He encouraged his correspondent to come along “next time,” according to the criminal complaint.
“It’s pretty exciting. It’s like the most real version of paintball ever,” Kasper wrote. “But with pepper spray, flashbangs, and tear gas grenades to throw back at those [expletive].
“And a huge team of people who all got your back. And will beat the cops off of you if they ever get ahold of you.”
‘Rioting is Not Easy Work’
“Rubber bullets though, yeah those are different and should not even be legal,” he wrote. “Rubber bullets is a misrepresentation. They’re technically called less-than-lethal ammunition, which only means it was not designed to kill, not that it won’t kill you or [expletive] you up. My advice, if they use rubber bullets, I’d skip right to the real ones to shoot back.”He encouraged S.B. to bring his paintball gun to do battle against police declaring, “Rioting is not easy work, man.”
“We’re gonna be the hero’s [sic] of the battle, bro. We’re gonna bring our paintball guns with [expletive] pepper balls, a can of bear spray each, a baton, taser, and my extension ladder, lol,” he wrote.
“Those cops will [expletive] themselves when hundreds of us set up a latter [sic] and hold the [expletive] so they can’t kick it down and start climbing up the roof with them and start pepper spraying and pepper balling them.”
He told police that the crowd came to the Capitol to be heard.
“I’m on a warpath with those capital [sic] police now. Before anything crazy happened I sat there at the fence talking to their dear gang and I told him we didn’t want a fight and didn’t want to hurt any of you,” Kasper wrote.
“Just please go home, it’s not worth it, we came to be heard and we’re not leaving. And he straight just pulled out his pepper spray and [expletive] me right in the face.”
Kasper recounted one officer who was pulled into a crowd of protesters and lost his club, pepper spray, handcuffs, and radio. Armed with his own baton, Kasper said he got into the officer’s face and screamed “just go home,” the criminal complaint said.
“I’m pretty sure dude thought he was gonna die that day, lol.”
Charges against Kasper are part of a recent uptick in Jan. 6 arrests.
The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have arrested and charged more than 775 people for alleged crimes at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Critics have complained that dozens of defendants have been held in jail without bail for more than a year, some for non-violent offenses. One man accused of a violent crime on Jan. 6 was released this week by a federal magistrate judge.
Ralph Joseph Celentano III, 54, of Broad Channel, New York, was charged March 9 with seven federal counts, including the blind-siding of a U.S. Capitol Police officer. The blow to the officer’s back knocked him over a barrier onto officers standing below.
Video shows a man identified as Celentano striding up behind the officer and plowing into the officer’s back with his shoulder, sending the officer flying over the barrier.
Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather ordered Celentano released and told him to appear for a hearing on May 17. The judge said Celentano cannot possess firearms or other weapons, and must register for supervision by the U.S. Probation Office for the Eastern District of New York.
