Maryland police officer convicted of tossing smoke bomb at police during Capitol riot
WASHINGTON — A Maryland police officer was convicted Friday of joining a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and throwing a smoke bomb and other objects at officers guarding the entrance to a tunnel.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden heard two days of non-jury testimony this week before finding Montgomery County Police Officer Justin Lee guilty of two felonies and three misdemeanors. The judge, who also acquitted Lee of two other misdemeanors, is scheduled to sentence him on Nov. 22.
Lee, 26, lit a smoke bomb and threw it into the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where a crowd of rioters was attacking a group of outnumbered police officers. The device struck an officer’s riot shield and filled the mouth of the tunnel with a large plume of smoke. prosecutors said.
“No police officer should have to endure this kind of attack and provocation,” McFadden said.
Lee, who remains free until sentencing, showed no apparent reaction as the judge read his sentence aloud. His attorney declined to comment after the hearing.
After Lee’s arrest last Octoberpolice said they had suspended him without pay. Department spokeswoman Shiera Goff said officers “will continue with termination procedures” now that Lee has been convicted.
“The actions of one individual do not define the entire department,” the department said in a statement last year.
Lee, of Rockville, Maryland, applied for a job as a Montgomery County police officer in July 2021, six months after the riots. The department said it hired Lee about a year after the riots and did not learn of his alleged involvement in the attack until July 2023, when it learned he was under investigation by the FBI.
Videos show Lee wearing a Maryland flag-patterned gaiter over his face outside the Capitol. He also carried a military-style medical bag attached to his clothing.
Lee waved at other rioters to rush police as the crowd charged a line of officers on the West Plaza, prosecutors said. Lee went to the Lower West Terrace and threw the smoke bomb and three other “rock-like objects” at officers guarding the tunnel, the judge heard. Prosecutors said Lee later joined other rioters in “spotlighting” officers in the tunnel with a flashlight.
The judge rejected Lee’s claim that he was “just trying to make a statement” about police brutality after seeing officers use force on other rioters that day. McFadden also said he believes Lee went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with the intention of disrupting Congress as it was certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
According to defense attorney Terrell Roberts III, the assault charge in this case only applies to acts that involve physical contact with the victim. Robert argued that the riot shield prevented physical contact between the smoke device and the officer’s body.
“It would be bad policy to send someone to prison if the evidence does not establish all the elements of an offense,” he wrote before the trial.
Lee was indicted on seven counts. The judge convicted him of two felonies — obstructing police during a civil disturbance and assaulting, resisting or obstructing officers — and misdemeanor counts of public disorder and trespassing.
But the judge also acquitted him of two felony charges of physical assault. McFadden ruled that prosecutors had failed to provide sufficient evidence that Lee had committed an act of physical assault.
Lee had been on administrative leave since he shot and killed a man suspected of stabbing four people on July 22, 2023, police said. Police said Lee had not been a police officer since the shooting, but his unpaid suspension stemmed from his Jan. 6 arrest.
On the day of last year’s shooting, officers were responding to reports of a stabbing at a thrift store in Silver Spring, Maryland, when they confronted a suspect holding a butcher knife. The suspect ignored officers’ commands to drop the knife and attacked Lee before the officer shot him, police said in a news release.
One of the four stabbing victims was seriously injured, police said. A police officer told reporters that all victims were expected to survive the attacks, which he described as ‘unprovoked’.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 900 have pleaded guilty. More than 200 others have been convicted in trials decided by judges or juries.
Only two suspects from January 6 have been acquitted of all charges after a trial. One of them, a man from Mexico, was acquitted by McFadden after a trial without a jury.