After bragging on social media that he “fought” Capitol police and got tear-gassed, Trump rioter Leonard Pearso Ridge IV begged his friends to pray for him not to be arrested. But his request went unanswered after a classmate reported him to the FBI, which promptly arrested him.
According to the criminal complaint, Ridge, of Pennsylvania, was charged with unlawful entry, disorderly conduct and obstructing an official proceeding. The FBI stated it had acted upon two witness accounts of the Snapchat videos — one from someone who attended high school with Ridge.
Among the boisterous statements made on the videos under the Snapchat profile name “Pearce Ridge” were these, according to the report:
“A loud voice is heard in the video yelling words to the effect of “let’s go, let’s go. Get in this B*tch.” (In another) one can hear the words to the effect of “they’re gassing it, they’re gassing it,” a reference to tear gas being deployed within the Capitol building. The voice then loudly yells “America First B*tch.” (A) fifth video starts with a “selfie” style recording and shows a white male, with blonde hair, a camel colored jacket, and a black shirt inside the Capitol with the caption, “Currently making history.”
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The FBI also reported the excerpt below from Ridge’s Snapchat texts:
“The election was completely stolen And if they can steal it once they can steal it the next time too Forever screwed if we don’t stop it this time…Yeah man something needs to change. And something big will happen in this nation very soon. Either in our favor or theirs and its just the final boiling point whoever gets the upper hand will just control the country honestly [sic].””Yeah just stormed the US capital [sic] for the first time in US history and I was a part of it to see it fall apart infront [sic] of their eyes Yeah hopefully that goes down in history and isn’t erased with everything they don’t like tho.”
Yeah man so epic I have a video of me fighting riot police in the capital [sic] building…I got tear gassed and maced [sic] five times ngl it was rough.”We bro [sic] down McConnells door and nacy pelosios [sic] door and raid the offices.”Just pray for me that I don’t get arrested by the fbi.”
You can read the full FBI arrest report here.
