WASHINGTON — Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was nearly killed by a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, spoke outside the courtroom during closing arguments in Donald Trump’s secret trial on Tuesday , calling Trump “an authoritarian” with “a fetish for violence.”
Hours later, Fanone’s mother was “beaten” in her Virginia home.
On Tuesday, a fake “manifesto” attributed to Fanone was sent to several email addresses, including some associated with a high school Fanone attended for a year more than two decades ago. The “manifesto,” seen by NBC News, claimed that the writer had killed his mother and planned to go to the recipient’s school on Wednesday and shoot more people. He provided Fanone’s mother’s home address.
That night, Fanone told NBC News, her mother opened the door to law enforcement while in her nightgown, “mortified” to find SWAT team officers in her home.
“How dangerous is it to send police officers to an address where you are essentially describing an active shooter, where the only person present is a 78-year-old woman,” Fanone told NBC News. “This is the reality of facing or challenging Donald Trump. … These violent calls are incredibly dangerous, especially when the target is someone like my mother.”
The Fairfax County Police Department’s threat assessment management team assisted in the investigation, the department told NBC News. The Alexandria Police Department did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. The FBI had no immediate comment.
Fanone said he understands that police received more than two dozen calls related to the swatting incident. Fanone said his father was also listed as an address, but that he was out of the country.
“All I do is go out there and talk about what happened to me and so many other officers, like I always have, and that’s the resource,” Fanone said. “This is the direct result of that.”
Fanone previously spoke about the attack on the Capitol before the Jan. 6 Committee and made comments at the sentencing hearings of the rioters who assaulted him. He left the Metropolitan Police Department at the end of 2021 after being assigned to a desk job and feeling targeted by other MPD officers.
Fanone, who voted for Trump in 2016, spoke outside the courthouse Tuesday as part of a campaign event for President Joe Biden. He blamed Trump’s “lies” for the attack on the Capitol.
“These supporters were fed by Trump’s lies and the lies of his surrogates, lies that the 2020 election was stolen,” Fanone said. “These same lies were spewed by Donald Trump and his surrogates about what happened to me and so many other police officers on January 6, 2021, that day I was brutally assaulted.”
Fanone named four individuals – all of them Trump supporters – who assaulted him on January 6, 2021: Albuquerque Head, who is serving 7.5 years in federal prison; Kyle Young, who has served his sentence for more than 7 years; Thomas Sibick, sentenced to four years; and Danny “DJ” Rodriguez, who held a stun gun to Fanone’s neck and is serving one of the longest sentences given to a rioter on January 6, 12.5 years in federal prison.
“All four of these individuals are self-admitted Trump supporters, all four have committed violent attacks against law enforcement. I am just one representative of the hundreds of police officers who were attacked that day by Donald Trump supporters inspired by his lies. the lies that continue to this day to inspire my fellow Americans to turn on their fellow Americans and to turn on law enforcement officers,” Fanone said. “Ultimately, this election is about Donald Trump and his vision for the Office of the President of the United States. United States, not as a public servant who answers to the elected officials, to the people who elected him, but as an authoritarian official who answers and serves only himself.”
Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal election interference case against Trump in Washington and the confidential documents case in Florida, was the target of an attempted coup over Christmas, NBC News reported. So did Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the Washington election interference case, which is currently on pause while the Supreme Court decides whether the presidency is a license to commit crimes with full immunity.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
