Twenty-year-old retired DC police officer Michael Fanone was brutally attacked on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters trying to steal the 2020 election. Over the weekend, he handed incitement hunter Forrest Rogers the handcuffs used to arrest MAGA terrorist Danny Rodriguez, who drove a stun gun into Fanone’s neck.
“A very cool moment this weekend: Michael Fanone hands @Forrest_Rogers the handcuffs used to arrest #TaserPrick Danny Rodriguez (the Trump enthusiast who put a stun gun in Fanone’s neck on January 6 for calling out Trump’s lies about the 2020 election believed), NBC justice reporter Ryan Reilley, author of Sedition Hunters, shared via the video.
A very cool moment this weekend: Michael Fanone’s presentation @Forrest_Rogers with the handcuffs with which he was arrested #TaserPrick Danny Rodriguez (the Trump enthusiast who slammed a stun gun into Fanone’s neck on January 6 for believing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election). pic.twitter.com/jXlI8cmSpN
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 6, 2023
Forrest Rogers is an American open source investigative journalist for Switzerland-based NZZ News and a rabble-rouser hunter, who used skills where law enforcement lagged, to identify many of the 1/6 Trump terrorists. These skills helped identify Danny Rodriguez, as part of Rogers’ work for the online Sedition Hunters group.
Ryan Reilly reported in June:
Forrest Rogers, an American living in Germany on January 6, first came forward with evidence that Rodriguez electroshocked Fanone after studying the online video frame by frame as part of his work for Deep State Dogs, one of the groups online Sedition Hunters who emerged in the aftermath of January 6 to identify Capitol rioters. After Rogers tweeted a video of the incident, Rodriguez was identified by activists who knew the man in the MAGA hat from a protest scene in Beverly Hills, California.
Rodriguez was subsequently identified in a February 2021 HuffPost story, and the FBI arrested him the following month. In an FBI interview, Rodriguez called himself a “fucking piece of s–t” and said he was “not smart.” Rodriguez said he was influenced by the far-right conspiracy theory website Infowars, as well as conservative commentators like Steven Crowder, Mark Dice and the duo of brothers “Hodgetwins.” Rodriguez, who believed Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election, told the FBI that Trump “called us to Washington” on January 6 and that he felt obligated to respond to the commander in chief.
Rodriguez, who bragged about a Trump MAGA telegram chat: ‘Omg I got so much f–ing s- [right now] and left. Tazzed the f- out of the blue,” was sentenced in June this year to 12.5 years in prison for felony conspiracy, causing bodily harm to officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon, and more. Federal prosecutors charged him with an act of terrorism on top of Director Wray’s calling the events of 1/6 domestic terrorist.
Rodriguez did not apologize to Officer Fanone.
Republicans have tortured 1/6 MAGA Trump supporters even while claiming to support blue. The judge called Rodriguez “one of the most serious perpetrators” of the terrorist attack on 1/6.
Reilley’s June piece also shared Fanone’s important words: “Your Honor, we must all join the fight against Donald Trump and the destructive, divisive movement he has come to represent. We should not offer him a safe haven and give his enablers – in business, politics and the media – no quarter. In the fight to preserve our Republic, there should be no spectators.”
Fanone, a former Trump voter and self-described “redneck,” has written his own book, “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul,” which Simon and Schuster begin to describe this way: “If Michael Fanone calls himself -deployed to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he had no idea his life was about to change. As he reached the front of the line, he urged his fellow officers to protect them from the growing crowd of insurgents – until he found himself being pulled into the crowd, tasered, having a heart attack and viciously beaten with a Blue Lives Matter. flag as shouts went up to kill him.
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