Bucks man charged with assaulting police officer during U.S. Capitol riot
Ryan Samsel, 37, was arrested Saturday in Bristol. Cell phone records and video placed him in Washington and at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
A Bristol man was arrested over the weekend after federal prosecutors say he fought with police officers during the riot at the U.S. Capitol last month, leaving one officer with a concussion.
Ryan Samsel, 37, has been charged with assaulting a federal officer, obstructing law enforcement, and obstructing a legal proceeding, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday. He was taken into custody Saturday, according to law enforcement sources. There was no indication that he had hired an attorney.
Prosecutors said Samsel traveled to Washington on Jan. 6 and can be seen in footage recorded during the riot. In the videos, Samsel walks past a fence erected near the Capitol and confronts a female officer behind a metal barricade, the indictment said.
Samsel and other rioters “pushed and pulled” on the barricade, causing it to topple onto the officer, who fell and hit her head on the ground and suffered a concussion, the indictment said. He then helped the officer up, telling her, “We don’t have to hurt you. Why are you standing in our way?” according to the document.
The officer, who was not identified, blacked out later that day and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital, prosecutors said.
Later, as rioters pushed closer to the building, Samsel was filmed fighting a group of officers in riot gear. At one point during the melee, he tried to wrestle a shield away from one of the officers, the indictment said.
Federal investigators identified Samsel through a law enforcement database: He is currently on parole for a 2016 assault conviction in Bucks County, and there is a warrant out for his arrest in connection with a separate assault in Burlington County, court records show.
They subpoenaed Samsel’s cell-phone records and found that he had traveled to Washington and back on Jan. 6, the indictment said.
Samsel was the second Bucks County resident — and at least the 11th Pennsylvanian — in recent days to be face criminal charges for rioting at the Capitol.
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On Friday, federal agents arrested Dawn Bancroft, a Doylestown resident who owns CrossFit Sine Pari. Bancroft allegedly recorded herself and another woman, Diana Santos-Smith, inside the Capitol during the riot.
“ ‘We broke into the Capitol … we got inside, we did our part,’ ” Bancroft said, according to the FBI.
“Looking for Nancy to shoot her,” she said at another point, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a video she filmed in the Capitol and sent to others, law enforcement officials said.
Bancroft faces federal charges of knowingly entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct.