Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer Arrested After Capitol Riot Involvement, FBI Confirms
Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer has turned himself in to authorities after participating in the Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob riot at the United States Capitol Building as Electoral College votes for now President-elect Joe Biden were being certified.
WishTV reports the FBI confirmed Schaffer turned himself in at around 3PM ET.
"Jon Schaffer, Columbus, IN, has been arrested in connection to Jan 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol," reads an official statement from the FBI. "Schaffer faces 6 charges including engaging in an act of physical violence in a Capitol building. Schaffer was allegedly among rioters who sprayed Capitol police with "bear spray."
Photos from inside the Capitol at the time of the riot emerged online from news media photographers and journalists who were also inside, covering the now historic attack.
One widely circulated photo, seen above, showed Schaffer as one of the many participants and fans quickly recognized him as the Iced Earth founder, promptly tagging authorities on Twitter while revealing his identity to them.
In the hours and days after the insurrection, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and FBI worked to identify dozens of perpetrators, sharing images from the afternoon’s violent outbreak online. The photo that featured Schaffer was among those images, where he was branded a “person of interest” by the police for the crime of unlawful entry. The same photo was used by the FBI who then declared him a “most wanted” target.
The photo shows Schaffer in a blue hoodie, black fingerless gloves and a hat that reads “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.” The Oath Keepers is a far-right anti-government militia organization that was formed in 2009.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that regularly identifies hate groups and other domestic threats to civility, said this of the Oath Keepers:
The Oath Keepers, which claims tens of thousands of present and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members, is one of the largest radical anti-government groups in the U.S. today. While it claims only to be defending the Constitution, the entire organization is based on a set of baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties of Americans.
Prior to the events of Jan. 6, Schaffer, who lives in Indiana, was present in Washington D.C. at a pro-Trump rally on Nov. 15, eight days after the Presidential race was called for Joe Biden. While there, he spoke on video with the German media outlet Die Welt, about his reasons for attending and his thoughts on potential for violence at the rally.
The full transcription from the posted interview (via Blabbermouth) has been replicated in its entirety below.
My name is Jon Schaffer. I'm from Indiana.
A group of thugs and criminals hijacked this country a long time ago. Now they're making their big move, and it's not gonna happen. And that's what it is. These are globalists. These are the scum of the earth. These are the criminals that are behind all the fraudulent fee on currency, they're behind all the wars, they're behind all the shit, they're behind divide-and-conquer tactics, behind the racial divide. It's all nonsense, it's all garbage.
People need to wake up and snap out of the matrix, because they're going down. They've made the move. They're messing with the wrong people here — trust me on that. And we needed it to be open like this — open fraud, open theft. Because now we see you, and you're going down. Mark my words.
If somebody wants to bring violence, I think there's a lot of us here that are ready for it. We don't want that, but if they bring it, we're gonna respond to that — trust me.
I think this goes beyond President Trump. President Trump is a populist. He's not your typical Republican. He's not establishment. He's not going out starting wars all over the place, like they do. Which is funny — where are all the Democrats that were anti-war?
There's so much hatred for Trump, it's just ridiculous. He's dealing with a criminal mafia that has been in the shadows running the world, frankly, for a very long time. They wanna destroy all of our sovereignty and bring about global government.
We're not having it. We can still do business together, the countries can still be at peace, but we're not gonna merge into some globalist, communist system. It will not happen. There will be a lot of blood shed, if it comes down to that — trust me.
The American people will not go for that bullshit — once they understand what's actually happening. So, that's where we're at. Nobody wants this, but they're pushing us to a point where we have no choice.
We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.