WASHINGTON — A contentious afternoon of questioning prompted the federal judge presiding over ex-NYPD officer Thomas Webster’s trial to assign both sides “homework” Thursday. In short: Get it together.
Webster took the stand in his own defense Thursday morning at his trial on multiple charges in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including felony counts of civil disorder and assaulting police with a dangerous weapon.
Jurors heard two days of testimony earlier in the week from U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers, who talked about being outnumbered and overwhelmed by the pro-Trump crowd on Jan. 6. DC Police Officer Noah Rathbun testified that he was assigned to the department’s mountain bike unit, but deployed along with many others to the Capitol to assist beleaguered Capitol police that day. He was standing along the police perimeter near the inaugural stage on the west side of the Capitol when Webster pushed his way through the crowd and began berating police and shoving a bike rack barrier against them.
Rathbun eventually wound up on the ground after Webster tackled him and attempted to rip off his helmet and gas mask. He testified that at that point he was fearful for his safety.
“I couldn’t see any other officers in the area, so I was scared,” Rathbun said.
Webster’s telling of events on Thursday was markedly different. After going over his background as a U.S. Marine and NYPD officer of 20 years, Webster told jurors he traveled to D.C. on Jan. 6 as a supporter of former President Donald Trump hoping to convince Congress to “take another look” at the 2020 election. He eventually made his way to the U.S. Capitol, where, he claimed, he saw children and families crying and an elderly couple walking away with blood on the wife’s face. He claimed that was what “upset” him and drove him to push through the massive crowd to the front lines, where police were maintaining a tentative bike rack perimeter.
Over the course of that trip to the front – which took more than 20 minutes and involved scaling a waist-high wall at one point – Webster said he set three rules for himself. He would leave if he saw a restricted area sign, if he heard an announcement or if an officer told him to leave. Assistant U.S. attorney Katherine Nielsen would later bring those self-professed rules back up during cross-examination – getting Webster to admit he had seen flashbangs going off and smelled tear gas as he made his way to the front.
Webster testified that he is “programmed” to help when he sees people getting hurt, and that explained him going to the front lines. When he arrived, however, Rathbun’s bodyworn camera video shows Webster was already irate and immediately began screaming at officers and shoving the metal bike racks against him. During cross-examination, Nielsen pointed out Webster began hitting at officers and the bike racks with a metal flag pole he was carrying within 20 seconds of getting to the front line.
Webster explained that by saying Rathbun had made a “bring it on” hand gesture inviting him to cross the barrier and fight him. Rathbun’s bodycam video doesn’t show the gesture, but Webster’s attorney, James E. Monroe, has claimed a blurry cell phone video taken from someone above on the Lower West Terrace does. Webster also accused Rathbun, who served as a U.S. Navy Corpsman prior to joining the DC Police Department, of taking one look at the Marine Corps flag he was carrying and deciding to fight him.
Under questioning from Monroe, Webster testified that he’d served at many crowd control events during his 20 years as a housing officer in NYC and then during his time on former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s security detail. Webster said he had been trained on de-escalation techniques and on how not to respond to taunts from protestors, and that he thought Rathbun had failed to employ them. He repeatedly referred to Rathbun as a “rogue cop” and claimed he had incited the whole confrontation.
“You’ve got to de-escalate,” Webster said. “I gave him all the answers. That flag… he’s a Navy corpsman. In the Marine Corps, we treat Navy corpsmen like our mothers. If he’d said, hey man, I’m a Navy corpsman, I would have hugged him.”
Webster’s account of the contact Rathbun made with his face also differed greatly from what jurors had heard and seen earlier in the week. Rathbun’s bodyworn camera footage shows his left hand made brief, open-palm contact with the right side of Webster’s face while Webster was shoving the bike rack. Webster described that contact variously as being “violating,” like “getting hit by a hammer” and “like a freight train.” He claimed to have thought he might have suffered a concussion.
Later, in a combative back-and-forth with Nielsen, Webster identified the only visible mark on his face after the altercation as being a cut on his lower left lip, despite the force he claimed from Rathbun’s blow. Webster claimed Rathbun had punched him in the jaw after he tackled the DC Police officer to the ground although, like other claims he made Thursday, no video was entered in the case showing it.
Webster appeared relaxed while testifying — adopting, at times, an almost folksy demeanor. Although his service in the Marine Corps lasted four years in the mid-80s, far less than the 20 years he spent as a police officer, he found opportunities to mention it in the majority of his answers. On multiple occasions he referred to himself as a “military guy,” a “proud Marine” and “just a jarhead.”
Webster's testimony was also inconsistent on occasions. He at first described the flagpole he'd brought to the Capitol as "super light." His attorney referred to it repeatedly as hollow aluminum. But once Rathbun had wrested control of it, Webster said he became scared of the pole.
"I was concerned about what he was going to do with that pole," Webster said.
Webster played up his physicality at points while downplaying it at others. He said he shoved the bike rack at officers to show them he could easily push his way through it "like a farm gate" and, after noting he'd played sports when he was younger, said he came at Rathbun "like an old-school football player." But under questioning from Nielsen, he suggested the officer had just fallen down and claimed repeatedly to have been scared of the much smaller man.
Webster’s ease on the witness stand and message discipline proved frustrating for Nielsen, who could not get him to concede he’d used his flagpole as a weapon – despite video clearly showing him repeatedly swinging it at Rathbun and a USCP officer. Webster’s evasive answers eventually prompted an admonition from the judge, who told him to answer the questions presented to him and Nielsen to pose her questions more directly.
Testimony ended for the day with cross-examination still unfinished. After jurors left the room, a visibly frustrated U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta told both sides he expected to come back Friday and do things “the right way.” In addition to redirect questions for Webster, Monroe was expected to call three character witnesses on his client’s behalf before resting his case.
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