US Capitol Riot

FBI Arrests Trump Supporter Who Stormed Capitol While on Bail for Attempted Murder

Matthew Beddingfield, of North Carolina, was first identified by online sleuths two months after the Jan. 6 attack

Pro-Trump supporters and far-right forces flooded
Pacific Press

WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 rioter who stormed the Capitol while he was out on bail for attempted first-degree murder was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday, more than 10 months after he was first identified by online sleuths.

Matthew Jason Beddingfield, of North Carolina, faces felony charges of assaulting officers, impeding officers during a civil disorder, and carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon on restricted Capitol grounds, as well as several misdemeanors, according to court records.

Beddingfield was first publicly identified in a HuffPost story in March after online sleuths investigating the Jan. 6 attack used facial recognition to find his mugshot and then confirmed his identification with the help of his father’s Facebook page. Beddingfield traveled to D.C. on Jan. 6 with his father, a fellow Donald Trump supporter who also believed the former president’s lies about a stolen election.

The two had attended a November 2020 rally in D.C. in support of Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss. Images that Beddingfield’s father posted of that rally showed his son wearing identical Nike sneakers and carrying the same pole attached to an American flag as he did on Jan. 6.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

Contact Us