Welder living in Uniontown indicted on D.C. riot counts

A traveling welder from Kentucky living in Uniontown has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 14 counts related to his alleged actions during the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, including pepper-spraying police.

Peter Schwartz, 47, was indicted Wednesday in the District of Columbia. He had previously been charged by complaint following an FBI investigation. Prosecutors have 30 days to bring an indictment following the filing of a complaint.

The indictment accuses him of numerous offenses involving the use of pepper spray on police and storming the Capitol grounds.

During a preliminary hearing in Pittsburgh last month, an FBI agent testified that Schwartz, a convicted felon, is seen in videos spraying Metropolitan Police

Department officers from handheld pepper spray canisters and also deploying spray from larger canisters taken from the police. He is also seen wielding a wooden club.

Agent Matt Solomon said Schwartz, of Owensboro, Ky., later bragged about what he’d done on Facebook and in texts to associates, telling one person that “I started that” in reference to the riot and saying, “I stole their [expletive] and used it on them.”

In another text, according to court testimony, he said, “I got some of their blood and proud of it!”

Schwartz had been living in Uniontown with his wife for several months before the riot and working as a welder for a local company.

The Pittsburgh FBI arrested him outside his rented home. He remains in U.S. custody pending trial in Washington, D.C.