by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News May 17, 2023

The key moment that turned Jan. 6, 2021 from a protest to a powder keg was when government forces opened fire on protesters with rubber bullets, a lawyer for J6 defendants said in an interview published on May 17.

“This is crucial — this is crucial — because this is where what everybody is saying” about J6 being a set-up and a fedsurrection “actually matters. But nobody is pinpointing the precise time,” defense attorney Steven Metcalf told The Gateway Pundit. “Everyone is saying, ‘There’s FBI agents in the crowd,’ ‘There’s CHSs in the crowd.’ There’s blah blah blah — I’ll tell you exactly where shit went crazy. …”

“It went crazy at that precise time when the protesters, all standing in the west side terrace, and then shots start going off and people are getting hit in the faces… There were a couple of agitators in the crowd don’t get me wrong, but what took it to a whole different level is people being shot in the face with rubber bullets.”

“That’s where people who were angry got even angrier and rightfully so,” said Metcalf, who represents several J6 defendants including Dominic Pezzola, the only Proud Boy acquitted of seditious conspiracy charges.

Metcalf said he has scoured through hours of footage that lawmakers refuse to release to the public and found that, after protesters knocked over a bike rack blockading the Capitol, the moment the government characterizes as “the first breach,” police were positioned in a “riot line.” Riot line protocol instructs officers to remove agitators from the crowd.

But instead of removing the agitators police on the riot line were strategically positioned “on the terrace above” to shoot protesters, Metcalf said.

“The first line [of police] is called the ‘skirmish line. The second line is called a ‘linebacker line.’ What they are supposed to do is when there are agitators in the crowd, specifically, get them out of there,” he said. “And they set themselves up from an elevated position – so they had people on the terrace above.”

“They started off with one shooter and then they got a second shooter.”

A law enforcement official, identified by government witnesses during discovery as Inspector Lloyd, “wearing a white shirt behind the lines,” gave the initial orders to shoot a “moderately calm crowd,” Metcalf continued:

“Behind the linebacker line is Inspector Loyd. This is what Dominic was talking to TGP about. He said, ‘There was a guy who signaled.’ There were a couple of people pushing the line but ultimately they weren’t doing anything crazy and they ultimately stopped their behavior and everything was somewhat chill at one point.

“Lloyd repositions himself, he looks up, he does a circular motion and then points in the direction of the crowd, in a particular direction of the crowd, I can show the hand signals that were done.

“They’re all standing there at the West Side terrace and then shots start going off into people’s faces. And then there are five or six people that get shot.

“We got video from above and then we got audio above. There was a shooter and a guy recording. From the guy recording next to him, you hear someone telling the shooters who to hit. ‘Hit the guy in the red shirt.’ ‘Hit the guy in the green hat.’ ‘Hit the guy in the brown jacket.’

“We got them saying who to hit and the people they were hitting were just standing there.”

J6 defendant Joshua Black is one of the protesters who was hit in the face by a rubber bullet.

After Black was hit, the crowd confronted the officers in the police line.

“You fucking shot him in the face! You’re on our side! You’re on our side!” a man screams in an officer’s face. “We are Americans. You fucking take him and help him!”

On Tuesday, “Black was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for entering the Capitol building with a knife on his hip and a gaping wound on his face,” the Gateway Pundit’s Alicia Powe wrote. Prosecutors had recommended a five-year prison sentence.

“Now, [Black is] the one who the bullet penetrated. Other people were getting hit in the head. I saw other guys getting hit in the ear. That is not proper protocol. You cannot do headshots with a rubber bullet like that from that vicinity,” Metcalf said. “The firearm officers used to shoot the rubber bullets had a warning label. We read the warning label to the jury which stated in sum and substance, ‘Do not shoot in the head or face because it can cause serious physical injury and or death.’

“I asked witness after witness, ‘If these people got shot in the temple would they die? If they got shot in the eye, would they lose an eye?’ Every answer was ‘Yes,’ it didn’t matter whose witness it was. My witness, [the government’s] witness it didn’t matter, the answer is, ‘Yes.’ ”

Metcalf added: “That’s what people don’t understand. [The shots] set everyone off! Then Dominic [Pezzolla] gets the shield, people were getting shot right by him. Dominic is standing next to Joshua Black in the video… the guy standing next to Dominic is getting shot — this shit was going on! Everybody is almost there, but they don’t have it right. If you want to talk about a setup, you have to talk about how they figured out a way to agitate the crowd. That’s what it comes down to.”

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  Lawyer for J6 defendants pinpoints escalation by government forces of protests at the Capitol, WorldTribune.com