The Donald Trump supporter who fired a gun during the 2021 attack on the US Capitol was arrested last month on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault. in accordance with Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois.
John Banuelos, 40, is from Utah, but whose sister lives in the Chicago area, was arrested “near 29th Street and Cicero Avenue in Cicero” on Oct. 17, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Office. A warrant for his arrest was issued in Salt Lake County on Oct. 1 on charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault, the Cook County Sheriff's Office said.
Banuelos was previously mentioned in an NBC News report. in February 2022, which showed he was the person who fired a weapon at the Capitol on January 6.
Internet “sedit hunters” correctly identified Banuelos, 40, and gave his name to the FBI in February 2021. A few months later, July 4, 2021, Banuelos hit a man with a knife – Christopher Thomas Senn – until death in Salt Lake City, but was not charged after claiming self-defense.
According to Salt Lake City police, after Banuelos was arrested for the stabbing, he told officers, “I was involved in a riot in D.C. You can find me, okay?”
He also told them, “That's me in the video with the gun right here.”
Senna's adoptive mother told NBC News in 2022 that she was “heartbroken” that the FBI did not act on information about Banuelos' behavior at the Capitol after her son was killed. “We're disappointed in the justice system… He should have been arrested… He's going to do this to someone else.” She said.
In a viral Video “Vice News” Footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot shows a man identified as Banuelos with a gun strapped to his waist in the middle of a crowd. In additional videos released later Banuelos appears to fire twice into the air.
Although Banuelos was identified by civilian investigators several months before the stabbing, the FBI did not arrest Banuelos for many years. In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, federal investigators received more than 200,000 tips about people who might have attended the protest, causing some whistleblowers to worry in the years after the riots that their tips were being buried under the sheer volume of calls.
Banuelos was eventually arrested in March 2024 and was ordered detained pending trial after prosecutors called his behavior “stunningly dangerous.”
Immediately after taking office in January, President published pardons for nearly 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Banuelos correctly predicted in court in May 2024 that Trump would be elected and pardon the January 6 rioters.
“President Trump will be in office in six months, so I'm not worried about that,” Banuelos said. according to the court transcript.
Ministry of Justice excited terminate the case on January 21, 2025, the day after Trump took office.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote at the time that she could not “see—and neither party identified—any flaw in either the legal substance or the factual basis of the government's case,” and that the government's “only stated reason for seeking dismissal with prejudice is that the President, in addition to pardoning the defendant, ordered the attorney general to do so.” A pardon, she wrote, “cannot make up for the blood, feces and horror that the mob left behind.”
“In hundreds of similar cases over the past four years, judges in this district have administered justice without fear or favor. The historical record set by these trials should remain untouched by political winds as a testament and a warning,” she said. wrote.
Prosecutors in the case did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.
