The Justice Department on Thursday charged two men with assaulting a New York Times photographer on Jan. 6, 2021, accusing them of pushing her to the ground and stealing her camera as they participated in the storming of the Capitol.
The two men, Philip and David Walker, are brothers who authorities say were part of the mob that breached security around the Capitol that day and pushed their way into the building as members of Congress gathered to certify the results of the 2020 election.
In a criminal complaint filed on Thursday, the F.B.I. said the Times photographer was “assaulted at the top of the East Rotunda stairs, inside the Capitol.” The complaint added that “the individuals identified as Philip Walker and David Walker then ran down the staircase” with the photographer’s camera, which they later disposed of.
The pair were charged with theft of the camera, assault with the intent to commit a felony and entering the Capitol unlawfully. Philip Walker was also charged with destroying personal property, according to the complaint.
Federal authorities did not name the Times photographer in the complaint. But she is Erin Schaff, who was in the Capitol that day on assignment. She described the events in an article she wrote for the newspaper the next day.
“The mob massed together and rushed the officer, forcing open the door, and people flooded in,” Ms. Schaff wrote. “I ran upstairs to be out of the way of the crowd, and to get a better vantage point to document what was happening. Suddenly, two or three men in black surrounded me and demanded to know who I worked for.”
Ms. Schaff added: “Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry. They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.”
Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company, said in a statement that the news organization was grateful to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for “their persistence in pursuing justice in this case.”
“Independent, fact-based journalism is a cornerstone of democracy, and attacks against reporters should be a grave concern to anyone who cares about an informed citizenry,” she added.
Much of the criminal complaint was dedicated to documenting the presence of the Walker brothers at the Capitol that afternoon. It included photographic evidence and interviews with witnesses who placed the brothers at the location of the assault on Ms. Schaff.
The complaint said that eight days after the attack on the Capitol, Philip Walker was interviewed by the F.B.I. and admitted to “engaging in a physical confrontation with an individual who Philip Walker believed was a member of ‘antifa.’”
Mr. Walker admitted that the person fell to the ground and that he took her camera, according to the complaint. It also said that Mr. Walker admitted to getting rid of the camera “in a body of water while en route to his residence in Pennsylvania.”
The complaint included pictures of the two brothers in the area of the assault and described video surveillance that showed them running down stairs “carrying what appeared to be Victim 1’s photographic equipment.”
In her Times article, Ms. Schaff described how she was discovered by police officers after she was attacked.
“I told them that I was a photojournalist and that my pass had been stolen, but they didn’t believe me,” she wrote. “They drew their guns, pointed them and yelled at me to get down on my hands and knees. As I lay on the ground, two other photojournalists came into the hall and started shouting ‘She’s a journalist!’”
Ms. Schaff said that once the officers knew who she was, they helped her and the other journalists find a safe room to barricade inside.
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