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After seeing a tweet from President Donald Trump, upstate New York resident Brandon Fellows - who attended Hudson Valley Community College - was one of the hundreds to flood the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 6 when protesters stormed the building, according to a new report by Bloomberg.
Fellows, a standout high school wrestler at Niskayuna High School near Albany, rioted at the U.S. Capitol, where he reportedly donned a knit hat resembling a knight’s helmet and leather jacket with an American flag on the back and smoked a joint in Merkley’s office while posting on social media.
Despite becoming one of the faces of the riots, Fellows said he doesn’t regret his decision to join the rioters in what was reportedly his first pro-Trump rally.
“I have no regrets,” Fellows said to Bloomberg. “I didn’t hurt anyone, I didn’t break anything. I did trespass though, I guess.”
According to the report, Fellows lives in a converted school bus and has been out of work since the pandemic. He largely consumes his news from right-winged commentators on YouTube, Newsmax, and One America News.
“We were there for one common cause, which is making a statement that the government is crushing down on us,” he said.
“This is the last stand,” he said before attending Trump’s speech on Jan. 6 prior to the riots. “I feel like I’ve seen a lot of the election fraud evidence, and I don’t understand why nothing is being done.”
In videos that have been released since the riots, Fellows can be seen scaling a wall to reach the Senate side of the Capitol and helping others join him. He also interacted with Capitol Police officers who responded to quell the violence.
Fellows was arrested by FBI agents on Saturday, Jan. 16, and charged with being in a restricted building or grounds and violent entry or disorderly conduct. His first court appearance was in the Northern District of New York on Tuesday, Jan. 19.
According to the report, Fellows also plans on heading back to Washington this week to join the planned protests at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“Obviously Trump started a movement in a way, but I think we started something even bigger by doing this,” Fellows said before asking the Bloomberg reporter, “Do you think I’m going to go to federal prison? I was told federal prison is not fun.”
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