Iowa man arrested, charged with taking part in Capitol riot
An Iowa man was jailed early Saturday on charges accusing him of taking part in the riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said officers assisted the FBI in arresting 41-year-old Doug Jensen on Friday night at his home on the south side of the city.
Jensen was booked into the Polk County Jail early Saturday on five federal charges, including trespassing and disorderly conduct counts, according to news releases from the FBI’s field office in Omaha, Nebraska and the county sheriff’s office.
Sgt. Ryan Evans of the county sheriff’s office said Jensen was being held without bond and that he didn’t know if he had an attorney. In a seven-second, expletive-laced TikTok video posted Thursday under the username @dougjensen, a man who appears to be Jensen suggests he’s being made a “poster boy” for what happened and ends by saying, “Don’t believe the news.”
The FBI and sheriff’s office referred further inquiries about the case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.
Video posted online during the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday showed a man who appears to be Jensen, who is white, pursuing a Black officer up an interior flight of stairs. A mob of people trails several steps behind. At several points, the officer says “get back,” to no avail. The rioting has raised serious questions about security at the Capitol and the treatment of the mainly white mob compared to the often aggressive tactics used last year at protests over the killings or shootings of Black people by police.
The mob ransacked the building, forcing lawmakers who were voting to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory into hiding for hours.
Photos taken by The Associated Press also showed the man who appears to be Jensen wearing a stocking cap and a QAnon T-shirt over a hooded sweatshirt. QAnon promotes a false conspiracy theory that Trump is leading a secret campaign against “deep state” enemies and pedophiles.
The man’s brother, William Routh, 54, of Clarksville, Arkansas, said his brother insisted that he didn’t break into the building but was let inside and then shown around, even posing for pictures with officers. He said the video of his brother charging up the stairs also was staged.
“Doug has never lied to me,” Routh said. “He has been a good man his whole life. He is a family man. But he is like the rest of a lot of people that are patriots. We have been being told for the last what seven, eight months that if the Democrats get control we are losing our country. OK. That scares a lot of people.”
Jensen declined to comment Thursday when a reporter with KCCI-TV reached out to him through Facebook.
Evans, of the sheriff’s office, said Jensen had a past charge for operating a vehicle while impaired.
Jensen’s employer, Forrest & Associate Masonry in Des Moines, announced Friday that he had been fired. The company’s president & CEO, Richard Felice, told KCCI-TV that the company doesn’t agree with his actions.