By taking part in the riots at the U.S. Capitol, Pennsylvania officer Joseph W. Fischer did not just break the laws he was tasked with enforcing, the FBI says — he was allegedly at “the front of the pack pushing against the police.”
“Charge!” yells the person taking a video that Fischer posted Jan. 7, according to the FBI, the day after Trump supporters stormed the building in Washington and halted the democratic process. The recorder “had a physical encounter with at least one police officer,” the agency said.
Now Fischer, a patrolman with the North Cornwall Township Police, is charged with obstructing law enforcement during “civil disorder,” accused of aiding the insurrection that left one police officer dead and many others wounded.
More than a dozen off-duty members of law enforcement are suspected of participating in the Jan. 6 riots, raising uncomfortable questions for chiefs and departments around the country. But the allegations against Fischer stand out for how directly they pit him against members of his own profession. ( Continued in The Washington Post)
Source: The Washington Post or CNN with background at NPR