Dallas-Fort Worth men arrested, accused of attacking officers during Capitol riot
Two men from the Dallas-Fort Worth area were arrested Monday and charged with assaulting police officers during the U.S. Capitol riot.
Donald Hazard, 43, of Hurst, and Lucas Denney, 44, of Mansfield, are accused of physically attacking U.S. Capitol Police officers on Jan 6. They are charged with engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, civil disorder, obstructing an official proceeding, and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon or resulting in bodily injury.
Denney and Hazard used social media to recruit people into Denney’s white supremacist militia group, the Patriot Boys of North Texas, according to the Department of Justice and court documents. On Dec. 30, 2020, Denney posted on Facebook a photograph with the text, “Occupy Congress” and “the great betrayal is over.” The post was removed the same day.
On Dec. 21, according to court documents, Denney texted Hazard and said a militia meeting “[w]ent great man. We’re all good and solid. Trump himself is calling for a big protest in DC on January 6th. I’m not going to miss this one. If you can go, it’s paid for.”
The two exchanged messages about the various tactical gear they planned to wear in Washington, including bump helmets, body armor and safety glasses.
A video shot by the Washington Post shows Hazard, dressed in tactical gear, marching in Washington on Jan 6. In the video, Hazard tells the camera person, “Make sure you get my face and everything on your news channel. I want the enemy to know exactly who is coming after them.”
On Jan. 6, Denney and Hazard joined other rioters at the west side of the Capitol as they yelled at police officers guarding the building, according to court documents.
By 2:56 p.m., Hazard was inside the building and in a hallway near the Parliamentarian Door, according to video footage. He briefly went into the Parliamentarian’s office, court documents say, then continued down the hallway, further into the building. Hazard posted videos to himself on Facebook “breaking into the [U.S. Capitol] bldg” and “[t]elling everyone to come down and help ‘storm the building like a true patriot,” court documents say.
After several minutes, officers began to corral the crowd back toward the Parliamentarian Door. Footage shows Hazard grappling with U.S. Capitol Police officers as he fell down a set of stairs under scaffolding erected on the west side of the building. Hazard fought with one officer as they were both falling; the officer was knocked unconscious and sustained injuries to his head, foot and arm, according to the Department of Justice.
Denney is accused of launching a large tube at an officer, grabbing a canister of crowd-control spray from another and swinging a long metal pole at a third officer. By 3:12 p.m., he went into a tunnel that leads to the Capitol building, carrying either a baton or a stick, according to court documents. He and other rioters tried to force their way into the building and, on the steps of the Capitol building, he swung his fist at an officer and pulled the officer down the stairs outside the building, court documents say.
The men made comments on Facebook about their participation in the riot, according to court documents. Hazard wrote he “had to fight several cops.” On Jan. 14, he replied to a user in a Facebook comment and said, “I found out the worst I could be facing was a misdemeanor. Now I wish I hadn’t erased my pics and videos.”
Both men appeared in court on Tuesday in the Northern District of Texas and remain in custody pending further proceedings.
The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas assisted in the investigation, the DOJ said in a press release.
The case is being investigated by the Fort Worth Resident Agency of the FBI’s Dallas Field Office, along with the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The Del Rio, Texas Resident Agency of the FBI’s San Antonio Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Hurst Police Department, the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police assisted in the investigation, as well.
In the 11 months since Jan. 6, more than 700 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, the DOJ said. More than 220 individuals are charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
