A Texas man faces felony and misdemeanor charges linked to his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, per a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia. Steven Hassel, a 26-year-old San Antonio resident, was arrested and made his initial appearance in Texas following allegations that he obstructed law enforcement during the events at the Capitol.
According to the charges, Hassel was part of the crowd that dismantled police barriers intended as crowd control and he is said to have physically engaged by grabbing and pulling a barrier multiple times, which facilitated the crowd's advance toward the building – stepping over lines drawn by enforcement, this motion snowballed eventually into the Capitol's breach where confrontation with democracy took place in literal form.
Hassel is charged with a spectrum of misdemeanors along with the felony charge: entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly conduct both in the Capitol and in its grounds, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing within the building itself. The investigation, drawing upon the collaborative efforts of the FBI's San Antonio and Washington Field Offices, capitalized on video footage that showed Hassel among those who pushed past law enforcement on the Capitol's east steps.
Following the crowd's forceful entry, Hassel reportedly made his way to the building's inner sanctum – the office of the Minority Leader – before exiting at around 3:17 p.m., according to the DOJ statement.
More than 1,488 individuals across the U.S. have been charged since the Capitol riot, and the prosecution of cases like Hassel's by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia in coordination with the Counterterrorism Section underlines the gravity of actions that challenged the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
