WASHINGTON — A former NYPD officer will take the stand in his own defense Thursday in an attempt to convince a jury he was instigated to attack a DC Police officer at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Thomas Webster, who began trial earlier this week on multiple felony counts of assault and civil disorder, will be only the second Capitol riot defendant to take the stand in his own defense. Earlier this month, Dustin Thompson, of Ohio, testified that he believed former President Donald Trump had ordered him and other rioters to enter the Capitol. A jury convicted him on all counts.
Webster will take the stand in an attempt to rebut testimony from DC Police Officer Noah Rathbun, who testified for nearly three hours on Wednesday. Rathbun walked jurors second-by-second through footage from his bodyworn camera showing Webster push his way to the front of the crowd and begin yelling at him and shoving the police barrier. Webster eventually struck Rathbun with a metal pole multiple times before breaking through the barrier and tackling him to the ground – at which point he violently attempted to rip off his helmet and gas mask. Rathbun testified that Webster choked him with his helmet strap while pinning him to the ground, and that chemical irritants in the air became trapped inside his mask once he re-secured it.
“That’s not a position anyone wants to be in,” Rathbun said. “I knew we had lost the perimeter at that point. I couldn’t see any other officers in the area, so I was scared.”
Webster’s defense hinges on just a few seconds of blurry video from another camera angle which, his attorney James E. Monroe has insisted in court, shows it was actually Rathbun who instigated the attack. The video appears to show Webster shoving a bike rack against Rathbun multiple times before the officer pushed him back in return – making open-palm contact with Webster’s face in the process. Monroe told Rathbun that while the officer might call the contact – which he says was inadvertent – a shove, he was going to call it a “punch.”
Monroe also suggested Rathbun had motioned to Webster to fight him.
“At this point in time,” he said, showing another brief, blurry video snippet, “aren’t you signaling to the man in the red, white and black jacket to bring it on? To come and fight you?”
“No,” Rathbun told him.
Monroe made hay as well from the fact that Rathbun spoke to a DC Police detective and an FBI agent about the altercation. He asked why Rathbun didn’t report the bruises and scrapes he later claimed to have received from the attack. Rathbun said they didn’t seem important to him compared to the serious laceration he received to a finger during a later incident in the Capitol Rotunda – which required stitches and which he did report – and also to the injuries other officers received that day.
“There were officers who died, so I didn’t feel like being pushed to the ground and suffering some scrapes was as meaningful as other things that had happened,” Rathbun said. “But I was assured our bodycams would be reviewed.”
Prosecutors submitted other evidence to undercut Webster’s self-defense claim. FBI Special Agent Riley Palmertree, who was assigned as the lead agent on the case, walked jurors through footage showing Webster making his way through the massive crowd – passing multiple barriers and climbing over a waist-height wall – to reach the front lines. After the attack on Rathbun, open source video also appeared to show Webster continuing to move forward up to the restricted area of the Lower West Terrace. At one point, Webster appeared to point his finger aggressively at another group of police – just as he had at Rathbun prior to the attack. In another video, Webster yells into a camera, “Send more patriots! We need help!”
The prosecution was expected to rest its case Thursday after finishing questioning Palmertree. In addition to Webster’s testimony, Monroe said he had three character witnesses lined up to speak on his client’s behalf on Friday.
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