WASHINGTON — A Texas man who attempted to cut power to the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 was found guilty Wednesday of seven criminal counts by a D.C. judge.
Christopher Ray Grider waived his right to a jury and instead sat for a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Grider was arrested last January and indicted on eight counts, including three felony counts of civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of government property in excess of $1,000. Before trial began, Grider pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of entering and remaining in a restricted building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed last year, Grider told a reporter during an interview with KWTX in Waco, Texas, that he’d been inside the Capitol and had been just feet away from U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt when she was fatally shot while climbing through a window of a door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. Grider was ultimately charged, and convicted, of assisting other rioters in damaging that door prior to Babbitt’s attempt to climb through.
Before even entering the building, however, Kollar-Kotelly found Grider had committed criminal offenses. In a filing explaining her ruling Wednesday, the judge said prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Grider had dismantled a police barricade and turned it into a ladder that he and other rioters used to climb onto a stone railing. Prosecutors also proved he’d picked up a black U.S. Capitol Police rioter helmet which he later offered up to another rioter to use to damage the Speaker’s Lobby door windows.
According to Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling, Grider then entered the building through the Upper West Front Doors shortly after the first breach and attempted, unsuccessfully, to cut power to the building through an exposed circuit box.
Even after Babbitt’s shooting, the judge said, Grider remained near the Speaker’s Lobby door for several more minutes. He was one of the final rioters near the door who were forcibly removed by armored DC Police officers.
Grider took the stand in his own defense during trial and claimed his only purpose for being inside the Capitol was to “watch historic events unfold,” according to Kollar-Kotelly’s findings of facts. He also said he was trying to enter the House Chamber because he thought it was the Senate Gallery and he wanted to watch the proceedings.
“For a variety of reasons, the Court does not find these accounts credible,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
More than 900 people have now been criminally charged in connection with the Capitol riot, including more than 500 who have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. It was unclear Wednesday whether a sentencing date had yet been set for Grider.
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