Capitol rioter who 'cross-checked' officer sues police for $750K over injuries

WASHINGTON — A Maryland man who pleaded guilty to a felony for interfering with police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is now suing several of those same officers – claiming in a lawsuit they repeatedly assaulted him with batons in violation of department policy.

David Alan Blair, 27, of Clarksburg, Maryland, says police assaulted him and violated his Fourth Amendment rights while taking him into custody. He names as defendants in the suit the District of Columbia, four officers he says struck him with batons and two senior officers, a sergeant and a lieutenant, who he claims were negligent in allowing the alleged assault to take place. The suit, which the D.C. Attorney General’s Office removed to federal court on Thursday, seeks a jury trial and damages of $750,000.

Blair pleaded guilty in March 2022 to one count of interfering with police during a civil disorder and was sentenced to five months in prison by U.S. District Judge Christopher. According to Bureau of Prison records, Blair completed his prison sentence in mid-January, although he remains on supervised release. As part of his plea deal, federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss eight other counts against him, including five other felony counts – among them one alleging he assaulted DC Police Officer Kevin Peralta with a dangerous weapon.

At his sentencing hearing in July, Blair acknowledged he’d cross-checked Peralta with a lacrosse stick while Peralta and other officers were trying to move a crowd back across Capitol grounds away from the building late in the day on Jan. 6. Blair, who was also carrying a knife and a Confederate battle flag, told Cooper he’d gone to D.C. to protest the removal of Confederate statues around the country.

“I’m tired of our history being erased in this country,” Blair said.

Cooper, however, said he thought Blair came “primed for a fight.”

“The only folks you encountered are the police, and I think you were provocative. You confronted them,” Cooper said. “You know, I think there are different interpretations as to how you were positioned relative to that police line that was coming forward trying just to do their jobs, but you stood up against them, and you squared off, and you mouthed off, and you cross-checked the guy, right? And that’s an offense, and that’s a felony offense.”

After pushing Peralta with his lacrosse stick, Blair claims in his suit Peralta struck him several times in the head with his baton. He says he was then taken to the ground by other officers and struck multiple times with batons in the arms, torso and legs. During his sentencing hearing, prosecutors acknowledged Blair was injured during the takedown and had to be hospitalized overnight.

“But, again, no one else around him – rioters, that is – are defying police the way he is,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Liebman said during Blair’s sentencing hearing. “He appears to be the only one. And, again, he encouraged others to do the same.”

In the lawsuit filed by Blair’s attorney, Terrell Roberts, he claims to have suffered a concussion and multiple lacerations from the blows to his head, including one that required nine staples to close. After being released from police custody, Roberts wrote, Blair suffered from severe headaches, nausea and vomiting and difficulties with his short-term memory.

“Strikes to the head with a baton are prohibited by the Metropolitan Police Department’s standard operating procedures and are universally prohibited because it is considered to be the use of deadly force,” Roberts wrote.

Blair is at least the second person charged in the Capitol riot to file a lawsuit against police. In January 2022, Victoria Charity White, a Minnesota woman facing the same felony civil disorder charge Blair pleaded guilty to, sued D.C, seven officers and outgoing DC Police Chief Robert J. Contee for allegedly violating her rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments with baton strikes she received while inside the chaotic Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6. The suit sought $1 million in damages. White, who is still awaiting trial, voluntarily dismissed the suit in November.

Neither DC Police nor Roberts immediately responded to requests for comment Friday.