Inside News
Conway man Peter Stager allegedly beat officer with flagpole
An Arkansas man caught on video using a flag pole to beat a police officer during the U.S. Capitol riot was charged Thursday in federal court.
An Arkansas man caught on video using a flag pole to beat a police officer during the U.S. Capitol riot was charged Thursday in federal court in the District of Columbia, according to court documents.
Peter Francis Stager faces one count of obstructing a police officer from his duties during a civil disorder, according to the complaint.
According to Arkansas voter registration, Stager is 41 years old and lives in Conway. Investigators used the Arkansas Department of Motor Vehicles to help identify Stager through his drivers license photo.
Stager is charged in connection with an attack on a officer from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
The officer, identified only as B.M. in the “statement of facts,” was posted in an archway outside the Capitol building.
“From this archway, alongside other uniformed law enforcement officers, B.M. observed hundreds of individuals gathered outside,” wrote FBI Special Agent Jason T. Coe in the statement of facts.
“Some of these individuals were throwing and swinging various objects at the group of law enforcement officers,” wrote Coe. “While standing in the archway to prevent the group of individuals from breaching the U.S. Capitol building, and while wearing his official MPD uniform, some of these individuals grabbed B.M. and dragged him down the stairs of the Capitol building. These individuals forced B.M.
into a prone position on the stairs and proceeded to forcibly and repeatedly strike B.M. in the head and body with various objects.”
Based on tips and a review of two videos on a Twitter thread, the FBI determined that Stager was beating B.M. with a flagpole that had the United States flag affixed to the other end, wrote Coe. A confidential source identified the assailant as Stager.
In a second video, a man identified as Stager was recorded stating, “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death
is the only remedy for what’s in that building.”
Coe wrote that he believed Stager was referring to the Capitol building and to the members of Congress who were inside at the time.
“Referencing video 2, Stager told [confidential source 2] that he was ‘wired up’ from being either pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed and that was why he made the comments he did on camera,” wrote Coe.
Stager told the confidential source that he planned to turn himself in to law enforcement but had yet to do so, according to the
statement of facts.
Stager told the source that he didn’t know the man he was striking on the ground with the flagpole was a police officer and that he thought the person he was striking was “antifa,” according to the statement of facts.
Photographs showed B.M. lying face down on the Capitol steps.
“Clearly present on B.M.’s uniform, across his back, are the words ‘METROPOLITAN POLICE,’” wrote Coe. “Also visible in the photo is Stager, holding a flagpole, with an American flag attached, with what
appears to be a clear view of B.M. in uniform, lying on the stairs.”
“The officer was injured but he is recovering and doing well,” said Hugh Carew, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department.
Stager is charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 231(a) (3), which makes it unlawful to “commit or attempt to commit any act to obstruct, impede or interfere with any fireman or law enforcement officer lawfully engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties incident to and during the commission of a civil disorder which in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or adversely affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function,” wrote Coe.
The “federally protected function” was the joint session of Congress where the Senate and House count Electoral College votes, he wrote.
Prosecutors have been filing complaints as soon as possible so people can be arrested. Then those initial complaints are often amended to include additional charges.
FBI and Justice Department spokesmen didn’t return phone calls or emails on Thursday asking whether Stager had been arrested and, if so, where he was incarcerated.
An online search of Arkansas court cases revealed only one for Stager: driving a vehicle with defective equipment in Faulkner County in 2018. Stager pleaded no contest. He was found guilty and sentenced to two days of community service with the Department of Sanitation.
Another Arkansan, Richard “Bigo” Barnett, 60, of Gravette, has also been charged by federal authorities in connection with the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Barnett, who posed for pictures with his feet on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, faces a maximum 10-year sentence for taking a dangerous weapon (a “stun gun”) into the Capitol, along with two lesser charges. Barnett self-reported to the FBI in Bentonville last Friday and has remained in the Washington County jail in Fayetteville since then. He has a detention hearing scheduled for today.