ECLAISRH eyes on each other
How theater of ideas at Albany gathering spot became “theater of war”
An undercover State Police investigator was nearby, watching as supporters of President Donald J. Trump began gathering in East Capitol Park on the morning of Jan. 6.
Many in the small group, which would swell in size over the next few hours to about 35 people, were holding flags and wearing Trump paraphernalia. They were there as part of a coordinated “Stop the Steal” rally timed to coincide with the massive gathering in Washington, D.C., that would subsequently turn violent as thousands of protesters forced their way into the U.S. Capitol — leaving five people dead.
The protest in Albany would also turn violent, though it paled in comparison to the siege in Washington. It wasn’t the first time in recent months that a demonstration in Albany had turned ugly — two otherwise peaceful protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd last spring devolved into clashes with police, property destruction and episodes of looting.
But the melee that unfolded as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was giving a coronavirus briefing in a room overlooking the park was something different: a brawl between individuals who are increasingly likely to recognize each other, and show up armed with weapons.
Interviews with law enforcement officials, and a review of court and police records, indicate that at least some of the violence is linked to people who are familiar to police in the Capital Re
gion.
“These are people that are showing up at ... different rallies, in different bubbles — but they are monitoring each other” on social media platforms, said a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation of the Capitol incident. “If you’re going to the Capitol to rally, why would you be arming yourself with a knife? You’re supposed to be arming yourself with ideas, and the Capitol — the theater of ideas — has become the theater of war.”
‘I knew who he was’
The undercover investigator, who is assigned to a Counter Terrorism Intelligence Unit, arrived in the East Capitol Park that morning at about 10 a.m. and reported to Edward Baskerville, a State Police senior investigator overseeing Capitol security, that she recognized three of the counter-protesters who were present.
As the crowd of Trump supporters grew over next 90 minutes, the undercover investigator, who was circling the park on foot, also noted that two or three men, “possibly members of the Proud Boys, were present,” according to an affidavit she later filed documenting what unfolded.
The protesters were gathered at the base of the Capitol steps around a bronze equestrian statue of Gen. Philip Sheridan. People in the crowd known by the undercover investigator also were familiar with one another.
In addition to members of the Proud Boys, which the FBI has described as a right-wing extremist group, there was at least one self-described member of Antifa, an unstructured web of anti-fascist groups and individuals that have been described by the FBI as violent anarchists.
A 35-year-old Rotterdam man, who told police he has been a founding member of the Proud Boys’ Troy chapter for about three years, was sitting on a bench watching as some of the counter-protesters and Trump supporters argued. He told police that some of the Trump supporters and counter-protesters came close to scuffling as they argued, but it was initially broken up.
Minutes later, over his left shoulder, he observed 37-year-old Alexander S. Contompasis of Albany, crouched on the frozen grass, clutching a cup of coffee and wearing a hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses.
“The man with the aviator glasses said that he knew who I was and I knew who he was,” the Rotterdam man told police later in a statement. “I said that I did know him. I recognized him but I don’t remember where from. I don’t remember ever having a confrontation with him in (the) past.”
Contompasis, according to his Facebook posts and his brother, Samson, who is a local artist, has also attended protests outside of New York, including the infamous August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and Trump’s inauguration earlier that year in Washington, D.C.
Contompasis has described himself as a security person for Black Lives Matter events and, on his Facebook page, embraces Antifa. He also has posted articles reporting Proud Boys being stabbed at events in the nation’s Capitol, adding an emoji of a knife to some of those posts.
“Ten years ago if you told me I was going to be part of an underground Anarchist network of masked avengers called Antifa, work with Skinheads to fight white supremacists, (and) have the honor of providing security for events organized by the Black Liberation Movement ... I would have absolutely no idea what the (expletive) you were talking about,” Contompasis wrote in a Facebook post on Dec. 2.
Knife, Taser, batons
According to police, Contompasis was armed with a knife in East Capitol Park.
Security video shows the melee began when a
Trump supporter appeared to throw a punch at Brandon J. Brown, a 21-year-old Schenectady man who police said was cursing at the protrump protesters. Brown and Contompasis had been sitting together about 35 minutes before the violence erupted.
During the ensuing fight that broke out between Trump supporters — several of them Proud Boys — and the counter-protesters, police allege Contompasis pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed two men, including the 35year-old Rotterdam man. The Times Union is not identifying that man because he could not be reached for comment, he has not been charged with a crime and he told police that a counter-protester, after he was stabbed, threatened to find and harm him.
The second man who was stabbed, a 40-year-old military member who returned from overseas duty recently, suffered an eviscerated bowel and underwent emergency surgery at Albany Medical Center Hospital. He was hospitalized for more than five days. His stabbing, however, took place outside the view of a security video that was released last
weekend by the Albany County district attorney’s office.
“I’m hoping to get additional videos,” said Melissa Carpinello, an attorney for Contompasis who said her client was acting in selfdefense. “I’m hoping to see all of the videos, and hopefully that (stabbing) is on camera.”
Although police have not confirmed it, witnesses — including the undercover investigator — said that someone discharged a Taser during the fight.
“I heard a sound that is known to me as a Taser discharging and ... someone shouting, ‘He has a knife,’” the investigator wrote in her affidavit.
In addition, at least two counter-protesters were armed with collapsible batons — called Asps — and one of them, 28-yearold Nicholas Waunsch of Troy, allegedly swung his at Trump supporters during the melee, according to
police. Waunsch was charged with misdemeanor counts of weapons possession and menacing.
The second man armed with a baton, according to police, was 33-year-old Alexis Figuereo, who returned to the Capitol last week to take part in a follow-up protest about what he alleged was police abuse during his arrest. He claims a trooper put a knee on his neck after knocking him to the ground when he tried to walk through what was then a taped-off crime scene.
Law enforcement officials who reviewed video footage of that arrest, which happened after the fight, said it showed a trooper appearing to kneel on Figuereo’s torso as he allegedly resisted arrest, but not on his neck. They said the trooper cautioned Figuereo several times not to walk through the crime scene but he ignored his order.
Figuereo, who characterized the Trump supporters as “Nazis” and the State Police as their sympathizers, accused police of aligning themselves with the Trump supporters because only one of them — an Albany man who allegedly struck a woman in the face with a flag pole — was charged with harassment, a violation. Figuereo was charged with resisting arrest, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal trespass, assault and disorderly conduct, all misdemeanors.
“When the Proud Boys started to be attacked back, that is when it started to be a problem,” Figuereo said. “(Police) were there to protect the Proud Boys, apparently — not to protect us.”
‘I’m not going to stand back’
Samson Contompasis,
41, who also has served as a volunteer “security guard” at protest events, said his brother acted in self-defense and had been knocked to the ground by a Trump supporter before stabbing the man in selfdefense.
“The reason that my brother is off-camera is that when he went to separate the fight, one of the Proud Boys came up and cleared him. He’s on the ground and this guy gets on top of him and repeatedly starts punching him in the face and head,” Contompasis said. “When the video pans up, my brother gets up off of the ground and he sees two