The riot on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol is forever etched into the minds of Americans.
Hundreds of people have been arrested and charged, including several Arkansans.
One of those Arkansans is Bob Snow of Heber Springs.
“I was not part of the violent group,” Snow said. “That’s not in my nature.”
Snow said it was his first Trump rally and he was excited to be there. He said he was not so much there to protest, but to show his patriotism.
“You don’t go there to beat up a police officer, you don’t chase after a congressman, you don’t threaten to hang Nancy Pelosi like some of those people were doing,” Snow said.
He admits to being inside the capitol and there are pictures that prove it.
“We had six very courteous capitol police officers and the only thing they said to us as we filed in [was] ‘folks, please don’t touch anything’ [and] that’s all they said,” Snow claims.
Snow also said he was unaware Congress was in session to certify election results.
“I wasn’t there to disrupt congress,” Snow said.
The criminal complaint says Snow told FBI agents “he urinated on a column inside an area he thought to be a cafeteria.”
He says that’s false and was guided to a location outside the capitol near a dark room with a window that from the outside looked like a lunchroom.
“That’s how they’re identifying this as a cafeteria,” Snow said. “No one was there. I would have never done that in front of someone. I am not a dog or an animal.”
The criminal complaint charges Snow with disorderly conduct, parading, demonstrating or picketing in the capitol building.
Snow said he doesn’t agree with the charges.
“I didn’t picket, I didn’t have a flag [and] I had no signs,” he said. “I had just my cooler, cell phone, my hat and that’s all I had. And I wasn’t trying to convince anybody to do anything.”
Snow says he’s been assigned to a lawyer in Washington who will represent him.
“I’ve been around for 78 years and I know that’s not how you do things,” Snow said.
Snow’s next virtual court appearance in a Washington, D.C., court is Jan. 11.
