Federal authorities have arrested an Illinois man who allegedly appears in a TikTok video fighting with members of the National Guard outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 breach of the building, records show.
Matthew Capsel, who apparently uses the moniker “Mateo Q Capsel” online, was arrested Tuesday, according to the Justice Department. He is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted area and resisting law enforcement.
The feds say Capsel was arrested in southern Illinois. However, a family member who spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times said Capsel was arrested after he got off work in Kentucky, and he was then taken to southern Illinois. The family member said Capsel is from Marseilles, a city in LaSalle County.
Court records show Capsel is in his late 20s.
A former neighbor and a social media friend turned Capsel in to the FBI, according to an 11-page criminal complaint filed against him. The former neighbor said Capsel was “known to be violent” and told the FBI about multiple videos of Capsel “on the frontline of the riot and breach.”
The social media friend said Capsel “was at [the] Capitol building when the protesters and rioters got on the building before entering” and had posted video that depicted it on his Facebook page.
Included in the feds’ complaint are screenshots allegedly from Capsel’s TikTok page, as well as a video recorded and posted to TikTok by a third person who also spoke to the FBI. That video depicts Capsel charging against a group of National Guardsmen, running into their protective shields and being pepper-sprayed, according to the feds.
A video like the one described could be found on Capsel’s TikTok page Wednesday.
In the weeks since the Capitol breach, federal authorities have also charged Bradley Rukstales, of Inverness, who was allegedly discovered amid a crowd inside the Capitol. Rukstales, who was the CEO of Cogensia in Schaumburg, lost his job over the incident.
Kevin Lyons, of Chicago, was also charged after he allegedly posted a photo to his Instagram account of a sign that read, “Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.”
Another man, Louis Capriotti of Chicago Heights, has also been charged with threatening President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
