Left: David Michael Camden appears circled in yellow allegedly waving a Three Percenters flag atop a media tower he climbed at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Right: In the yellow square, Three Percenters member David Michael Camden is seen allegedly deploying a fire extinguisher at police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Images via DOJ court filing.)
An Arkansas man accused of assaulting police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, before climbing a media tower to wave the flag of a far-right anti-government group known as the Three Percenters has been arrested, according to the Justice Department.
In a statement on Monday, federal prosecutors said David Michael Camden is charged with multiple felonies including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and civil disorder. The Tonitown man is also charged with several misdemeanors such as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.
Body camera footage allegedly shows that roughly 20 minutes after rioters first breached a restricted area, Camden screamed at officers before pushing a bike rack barricade into them as he tried to repel a line of police backward.
Though officers tried to repel him with a chemical irritant, Camden kept coming. Close to 2:11 p.m. on Jan. 6, open-source footage as well as footage culled from U.S. Capitol Police surveillance cameras allegedly showed Camden deploying a fire extinguisher at police before next moving to the Capitol’s west front.
From there, Camden is accused of ascending a media tower and once atop it, waving a Three Percenters flag triumphantly.
Many Three Percenters were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and evidence that emerged in Justice Department prosecutions of individuals associated with the anti-government pro-militia movement indicated connections and relationships between their adherents and members of the far right Oath Keepers and the “Western chauvinist” Proud Boys group. Several senior leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were tried and convicted of seditious conspiracy and remain imprisoned.
Left: David Michael Camden at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Right: Camden is seen allegedly pushing a barricade into officers (images via U.S. Justice Department).
After Jan. 6, internet sleuths identified Camden with the moniker #Littlemansprayer and told the FBI that they believed they saw Camden in a recorded interview with another alleged rioter on Jan. 5. In the interview, Camden didn’t give his name but described himself as a native of Nebraska who currently lived in Washington state. He also said he was an Army veteran and had previously received treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
With this info, prosecutors said the FBI was able to track Camden down and then cross-reference details culled from another interview with a person who knew Camden personally and was able to identify him in photos from Jan. 6.
It is unclear if Camden has retained an attorney and as of Wednesday, his next court date had not yet been set.
As Law&Crime previously reported, four members of the Three Percenters who wielded knives and sported tactical gear before storming the Capitol were sentenced in April for their roles in the insurrection. They were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding as well as obstruction of an official proceeding and other felonies and misdemeanors. Notably, Alan Hostetter, a former police chief from California and adherent of the Three Percenters movement who wielded a hatchet and other weapons at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December.
At least some of those obstruction charges could soon be walked back in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Fischer v. United States.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks and monitors hate and extremist groups in the U.S., describes the Three Percenters ideology in depth and notes that its adherents engage in paramilitary training and have repeatedly provoked violence against law enforcement as well as private citizens.
In more recent years, some Three Percenters were convicted for their roles in the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Barry Croft and Adam Fox, two architects and key leaders of that plot, were convicted in August 2022 and then sentenced to 19 years and 16 years in prison respectively. Prosecutors had sought life sentences. Three other men charged in the kidnapping scheme were acquitted in September 2023.
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