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The Colorado geophysicist who booked a flight to Switzerland and attempted suicide after participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot claimed he assaulted police officers and tried to storm the building because he is a “patriot warrior,” according to federal authorities.
The suspect, 51-year-old Jeffrey Sabol, spoke to investigators after he attempted suicide in Westchester County after the riot in the nation’s capital, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit recently unsealed in Washington, D.C.
Sabol, who was ordered held without bail at a court hearing last Friday, was captured on video footage holding a police baton against a Capitol Police officer’s neck and dragging a cop down a set of stairs during the insurrection, according to the affidavit.
Sabol claimed to law enforcement officers that in one of the videos — which appears to show him throwing punches at one of the cops — he was merely “patting him on the back,” according to the affidavit.
When investigators showed him the image of him holding the police baton, Sabol said he “could not recall” if he beat the officer with the club after launching into a “fit of rage.”
The geophysicist, who grew up in upstate New York, said he stormed to the front of the Capitol because a “call to battle was announced” amidst the mob of Donald Trump supporters.
Sabol said he answered the call “because he was a patriot warrior,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators tracked Sabol down after he attempted suicide in the Westchester County town of New City on Jan. 11, according to the affidavit.
After his suicide attempt, cops in the town found him in his car, “covered in blood, suffering from severe lacerations to both thighs and arms,” according to the affidavit.
Sabol told cops he was, “fighting tyranny in the DC Capitol” and that he was wanted by the FBI when they stopped him, according to the documents.
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