As violence erupted in the US Capitol Hill last Wednesday, when a group of armed Donald Trump supporters stormed the building during a Congress session, one person stood out: A man in a horn hat.
Viral photos showed a shirtless man donning a horn hat and had his face painted in red, white and blue.
The horned, shirtless man was identified by US media outlets as Jake Angeli. According to the reports, Angeli is a QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies over the past year.
Angeli was seen in photographs from Washington, D.C., amid protesters who turned violent and stormed the building.
At one point, Angeli was seen on the dais of the U.S. Senate. He posed for a photo flexing his right arm; his left was holding a spear from which hung a U.S. flag.
On Sunday, Jacob Anthony Chansley, turned himself in to police, the Department of Justice said.
Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli, called the FBI's Washington office on Thursday and later told agents "he came as part of a group effort with other 'patriots' from Arizona, at the request of the President that all 'patriots' come to D.C. on Jan. 6," the DOJ said in a release.
Before his arrest, NBC network reported, Chansley gloated about how the crowd infiltrated the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to flee. "The fact that we had a bunch of traitors in office, hunkered down, put on gas masks and retreat to their underground bunker, I consider that a win," he said to NBC News. Chansley faces several federal charges including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
US outlet ABC15 has claimed that Angeli told them he had not eaten any food severed to him yet in jail, "as it was not organic."
Chansley’s mother, Martha, also she explained his diet to the news portal.
"He gets very sick if he doesn't eat organic food - literally will get physically sick," Martha Chansley said. In another interview, she was unapologetic for her son’s role in the violent disruption of Congress
Jacob Chansley, AKA Jake Angeli, Arizona man makes first court appearance in for charges related to storming the U.S. Capitol. His mom says he hasn’t eaten since Friday because the detention facility won’t feed him all organic food. @abc15 pic.twitter.com/doTLFal4At
— Melissa Blasius (@MelissaBlasius) January 11, 2021
Since at least 2019, Angeli has held protests outside the Arizona Capitol shouting about various conspiracy theories, most related to the wide-ranging beliefs espoused by QAnon.
Angeli, in a 2020 interview with The Arizona Republic, said that he wears the fur bonnet, paints his face and walks around shirtless with ragged pants as a way to attract attention, reports AZ Central.
In February 2020, Angeli worked the crowd outside a rally in Phoenix for Trump.
He held up a tattered sign that read, “Q sent me,” and asked the crowd if they knew of the conspiracy.
A May 2020 interview also saw him in the same costume.