A group of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on the U.S. Capitol has filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government, seeking millions of dollars in damages, claiming that police used excessive force against them during the demonstrations.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Florida on Friday, alleges that both the Capitol and the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia used “means of excessive force,” including chemical munitions and pepper spray, to inflict harm on the plaintiffs.
It states that police “indiscriminately launched explosive munitions, chemical agents, and impact projectiles into a peaceful crowd and physically assaulted members of the crowd that was assembled on the west side outdoor terrace and grounds of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Rioters stormed the Capitol that day in protest of former president Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. As of this year, 1,500 people across the U.S. have been charged with federal crimes in relation to the event, and more than 1,00 people have been sentenced on charges ranging from breaking and entering to assaulting police officers.
Protesters scale the west wall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File
In January 2025, on his first day back in office, U.S. President Donald Trump commuted prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Capitol riot, including those convicted of assaulting police officers.
Alan Fischer, a Florida man with alleged ties to far-right militant group the Proud Boys, is a lead plaintiff alongside Patrick and Marie Sullivan, two other Jan. 6 rioters who were never charged.
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Fischer was one of the 1,500 granted clemency by Trump, leading to the dismissal of his case, NBC News reported.
The case includes the names of more than 40 people divided into several groups, such as Christopher Worrell, another Proud Boy who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting officers with pepper spray, cutting off his ankle monitor days before his sentencing and disappearing, and Andrew Paul Johnson, who was arrested on child molestation charges late last year. He was found guilty in February and was sentenced to life in prison this month.
Currently, 46 people are seeking $18.4 million in damages, the lawsuit says, but the class could include “hundreds or potentially thousands of individuals.”
The U.S. Justice Department has faced several lawsuits in connection with the Jan. 6 riots, including by the estate of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by Capitol police. Her family sued for $30 million over claims the officer who shot her was negligent with his weapon.
The Trump administration paid just under $5 million to her family in May last year, bringing an end to the $30-million federal lawsuit filed by Babbitt’s estate in 2024 in Washington, D.C.
The government is also involved in a lawsuit brought by former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — whose sentence for his involvement in the riots was commuted last year — who is claiming in an ongoing case that he was maliciously prosecuted and that his constitutional rights were violated.
The lawsuit seeks $100 million in punitive damages and involves several plaintiffs.
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