An Arkansas man held for three months after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot was “tortured” in the District of Columbia jail, according to his attorney.
Richard “Bigo” Barnett, 61, of Gravette was slammed into a concrete floor, threatened, kept in solitary confinement and denied prompt medical treatment when he thought he was having a heart attack, Joseph D. McBride of New York City wrote in an “emergency request” to Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union seeking an investigation into the way Barnett and four other “January Sixers” were treated in the jail.
Barnett is charged with carrying a dangerous weapon — a stun gun — into the Capitol during the riot. He also faces six other charges.
On April 27, Barnett was released from the District of Columbia jail and ordered to home detention pending trial.
“My client, Richard Barnett, who did not assault any Capitol Police or destroy any property, was detained by the federal government for 109 days before being released over the objections of the Justice Department since he was neither a danger to society nor risk of flight,” McBride wrote in the letter dated Aug. 3. “His crime was putting his feet on one of [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi’s desks at the request of a press photographer.”
http://globalreportage.org/2021/11/02/lawyer-says-gravette-man-charged-in-capitol-riot-tortured-in-d-c-jail/
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