“Maybe it was the death threat delivered by a fellow law-enforcement officer while he stood shackled in belly chains.
“Perhaps it was being described as a ‘terrorist’ by a federal judge who will preside over his trial.
“It could have been being released on bail by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tennessee, only to be ordered held until trial by a U.S. district judge in Washington D.C.
“Former sheriff’s deputy Ronald McAbee, 28, of Tennessee, has faced a difficult road since being indicted for alleged criminal actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Arguably the most trying situation for McAbee was being denied bail for nearly a year based on video evidence that his attorney now says exonerates him.”
This is how a story in The Epoch Times begins about the strange situation Ronald McAbee found himself in. McAbee had served more than seven years as a sheriff’s deputy and correctional officer in Tennessee and Georgia, and was wearing a “Sheriff” garment that day
During the chaotic situation, McAbee assisted two people who were in trouble. One incident was that “Several times he tried to render lifesaving aid to a dying Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia,” The Times reported. The other incident was when McAbee saw Metropolitan Police officer Andrew Wyatt down, and tried to help him. That action caused others involved in the riot to call McAbee names. While helping Wyatt, the two exchanged friendly comments.
However, for some reason, Metropolitan Police saw fit to charge McAbee with several crimes, according to The Times. “Charges included assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer, two counts of civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.”
From this point, the circus only gets worse. At a detention hearing last August, prosecutors played a video with audio turned off as evidence against McAbee. The magistrate judge ordered McAbee released until his trial.
Prosecutors, not pleased with the judge’s ruling, filed an emergency appeal. In a hearing the same day in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the federal judge stayed the order and scheduled hearings on the government’s motion to keep McAbee behind bars until trial. That hearing occurred on Sept. 22, and the judge ordered McAbee to be held in jail without bond.
During that hearing, the judge seemed to give a clue to his eventual decision to hold McAbee without bond. “When being shown a video with McAbee wearing body armor with a patch that read ‘Sheriff,’ the judge said, ‘That’s pretty outrageous,’ according to the official hearing transcript. Later, he said, “These videos are very disturbing,” and he agreed with the prosecutor’s assessment of the evidence.
“So, it appears clearly to this court that the defendant is pulling the officer back into the crowd of other terrorists,” the transcript quotes the judge as saying.
After another hearing on Oct. 13, 2021, the federal judge reversed the magistrate judge’s order, ruling that McAbee should be held pending trial. This despite the original judge’s statement that prosecutors did not show evidence that McAbee had been a danger in the eight months since his arrest, the federal judge still ruled that to protect the community, McAbee must remain in jail.
However, once the audio track of the video prosecutors used to create the image of McAbee as a “terrorist” was played, the story created by the prosecutors, and unquestioned by the federal judge, changed dramatically.
“A break in McAbee’s case came when video investigator Gary McBride of Decatur, Texas, studied the bodycam footage shown in court, except with the audio track turned on. It painted a vastly different picture of what took place, McBride told The Epoch Times.
“The prosecutors did not play the audio of AW [Andrew Wyatt] and McAbee talking during this point,” McBride stated in his evaluation of the video. “McAbee is trying to save AW. Prosecutors didn’t play that in court.” McAbee is heard telling someone in the crowd who tried to grab at Wyatt, “No!” and “Quit!” He also told the Metropolitan Police that they had a man down, and was telling Wyatt, “I’m one of you, I’m one of you.”
So, we have prosecutors — who almost certainly knew that the audio portion of the video they used as evidence against McAbee would destroy, or at least weaken, their case — presented it to two judges without the audio being played. And the federal judge, who apparently did not ask about their being an audio track, believed the faulty evidence, and reached, and announced the conclusion that the man whose trial he would preside over was a “terrorist.”
This example of “justice” was performed by people who are paid to do their important jobs with honesty and integrity, and to render equal justice under the law. That is what we, as American citizens, expect and deserve. Ronald McAbee did not get justice.
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