'Caught up in the moment': Fall River store owner regrets his actions at Capitol riots
FALL RIVER — There is no doubt that city business owner Mike St. Pierre was in the crowd when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — he shared a video of himself on social media. The images of St. Pierre went viral, at least locally, and caught the attention of the FBI.
After a speech by President Donald Trump that continued his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the presidential election, and just as a vote in joint session was about to certify the election of Joe Biden, St. Pierre and his partner, Destinie Cabral, joined thousands of other Trump supporters in marching toward the Capitol building. St. Pierre, in a video posted to his Facebook page, is wearing head gear and a flak jacket, saying he wants to grab House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the hair and twirl her around.
In another Facebook post, St. Pierre, owner of the Family Foods Grocery Outlet on William Canning Boulevard, can be heard saying as the crowd got closer to the Capitol, "That’s where the meeting ground is, hopefully they’ll bust through and I’ll join them."
A Tik-Tok video of less than two seconds shows St. Pierre lobbing an object into the building at a Capitol door with other rioters as they violently worked to storm the entrance.
St. Pierre said what he threw at the closed Capitol door was not a smoke bomb, as some on social media have claimed, but rather a piece of flag that someone handed him. He said he never breached the building.
In the video, the outer door to the Capitol building is open and St. Pierre appears to throw an object inside.
A week after the insurrection, St. Pierre expressed regret for his actions.
“The FBI already came to my house yesterday,” said the Swansea resident. “I told them everything that happened.”
He said he doesn’t know what will come of the federal investigation.
“But I’m not a violent guy, but I did get caught up in the moment,” he said.
St. Pierre admits he got angry when he and the people he was with were standing on the lawn with other protesters, when police started throwing tear gas at people who he says were not rioting, including an elderly veteran standing nearby.
“Most of the people that were there, were there just to have their voices heard. But there were people there just to rile everybody up,” said St. Pierre. “I felt like crap the next day, I still feel like crap over the incident. It was supposed to be chanting and having our voices heard, but it turned into a girl dying and an officer dying. It got out of hand.”
St. Pierre said he’s “kind of mad at Trump,” and that he believes the president should have known he was inciting his supporters to violence.
“I kind of wish I’d never gone and I’m done with politics. It’s not worth it,” said St. Pierre, who admits that he believed the election was rigged. He said he shared those beliefs on social media, but then saw no proof.
He said Biden should be “in and we’re going to have to deal with it.”
Of the remarks he made that went viral on social media — and of accusations that he committed treason and is a domestic terrorist — St. Pierre indicated he was “trying to be funny.”
“But it didn’t turn out that way and look what happened. Something that was supposed to be patriotic turned out to be chaotic.”
St. Pierre said he's not sure if the negative social media notoriety will affect his grocery business.
“I guess I’ll know in a couple of weeks.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.