CHICAGO — A suburban man has been arrested on charges alleging he entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and physically grabbed the baton of a police officer trying to push back the unruly mob in the building’s rotunda.
Tyng Jing Yang, of Hoffman Estates, was charged in a criminal complaint made public in U.S. District Court in Washington with a felony count of interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder and four related misdemeanor offenses. He is expected to make an initial appearance Wednesday afternoon in Chicago’s federal court.
According to the charges, surveillance cameras captured Yang, 60, as he entered the Capitol through building’s upper west terrace doors and made his way up a flight of stairs and into a lobby area outside the rotunda.
He then entered the rotunda, where he took selfies and posed for photos, according to the charges.
“When law enforcement officers attempted to clear the crowd, Yang forcibly interfered by physically grabbing hold of an officer’s baton,” the charges stated. “The officer had been using the baton to push back against others in the mob.”
The criminal complaint stated: “(Yang’s) actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the presidential election.”
It was not immediately known if Yang has an attorney.
Yang was at least the 34th Illinoisan charged so far in the Capitol breach in an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal probe in the country’s history.
Nationwide, more than 870 people have been arrested in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on charges stemming from the Capitol breach, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Unlike Yang, most of those arrested in Illinois have faced only misdemeanor charges, alleging they illegally entered the Capitol but were not violent or destructive, and so far only a handful have faced any jail time.
Earlier this month, James Robert Elliott, of Aurora, an admitted member of the far-right group Proud Boys, pleaded guilty to using a flagpole to assault officers trying to hold back the mob outside the Capitol, then later bragged in a text message that he’d “bonked 2 cops.”
Prosecutors said they intend to seek a sentence of three to four years when Elliott is sentenced Feb. 10.
———
