Jan 8, 2021 Epoch Times by Zachary Stieber
A Black Lives Matter activist was part of the group that entered the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
John Earle Sullivan, who has advocated for an armed revolution on social media, was arrested in July 2020 for making a threat of violence and criminal mischief. He organized a protest with Black Lives Matter activists and members of the far-left Antifa network. According to the Deseret News, Sullivan damaged vehicles and urged people to block roadways. Video footage captured him threatening to beat a woman.
Photographs showed Sullivan inside the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6. Sullivan has since given interviews claiming he took part in the illegal breach of the building as part of an effort to understand supporters of President Donald Trump.
“For me, it’s important from the group and the people around me to see that side of things, to see the truth,” Sullivan told KSL-TV. “I don’t care, like what side you’re on, you should just see it raw.”
Sullivan has not been charged with unlawful entry or any other charges that police say other people who entered the building face. His picture is not among those circulated by authorities of persons of interest in the incident. Sullivan said he was detained on Thursday night and questioned about what he saw during the storming of the Capitol. The Metropolitan Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Police said Thursday that 68 people had been arrested in the city, including 41 on Capitol grounds. Charges included unlawful entry and unlawful possession of a firearm, according to arrest data.
Sullivan is known for taking part in protests and riots connected with the Black Lives Matter movement, which was founded by Marxist organizers.
In July, he was arrested in Utah for alleged rioting, making a threat of violence, and criminal mischief due to his part in a protest that resulted in the shooting of a motorist.
“As a protest organizer, John Sullivan is heard talking about seeing the shooting, looking at the gun, and seeing smoke coming from it. John did not condemn the attempted murder nor attempt to stop it nor aide in its investigation by police,” the police affidavit said, Desert News reported.
“An armed revolution is the only way to bring about change effectively,” he said in a Dec. 28 tweet.
On Jan. 2, Sullivan wrote in a tweet: “[Expletive] The System – Time To Burn It All Down. #blm #antifa #burn #[expletive]thesystem #abolishcapitalism #abolishthepolice #acab #[expletive]trump.”
Sullivan also uses the moniker “Jayden X” online and is the founder of “Insurgence USA,” which describes itself as started “in 2020 in response to the Gorge Floyd tragedy,” referring to the Minnesota man who died after ingesting a potentially lethal amount of Fentanyl and was then pinned down during an arrest with a police officer kneeling on his neck.
The aim of Insurgence USA is “to empower and uplift black and indigenous voices” and “build local powers to enable the community to intervene in violence enacted by the state and government vigilantes,” the description of its YouTube channel says.
In his graphic video from the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, Sullivan can be heard saying “let’s burn this [expletive] down,” before entering the building.
In response to criticism on Twitter, Sullivan responded by saying he was there only to report and his actions were “part of blending in, so I don’t get beat up.”
But the video shows he was actively helping convince Capitol police officers to let the trespassers through as well as encouraging the trespassers to continue pushing forward.
“Protesters weren’t really, like, trying to burn anything down, they weren’t really trying to break anything, their main motive was to make it into the chambers,” Sullivan told KUTV. “Those protesters got really angry and busted through those officers really quickly, and yeah, you could really freely move around, you could go into any room and look out the window, so it was really surreal to see,” he added.
Sullivan recounted being near the woman who was shot dead by a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
“There was a glass wall, and she, the woman, was the first person to actually try to get inside,” Sullivan told KSL. “All you see is hands come out the doorways with their guns. … You don’t see their face, nothing. And I literally yell at everybody else, ‘There’s a gun! There’s a gun! Don’t go in there!’ And a shot goes off. And she gets shot as soon as she goes through.”
The U.S. Capitol Police said Thursday that one of its officers fired the shot that killed the woman, identified as Ashli Babbitt.
The officer was placed on administrative leave pending a joint investigation conducted by the agency and the Metropolitan Police Department.
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