‘Traitors get shot’: Man in Capitol riot threatened children if they turned him in, affidavit says

WYLIE, Texas — A Texas man identified as one of the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month is accused of threatening to shoot his children if they turned him in to federal authorities.

Guy Wesley Reffitt, 48, of Wylie, is charged with obstruction of justice for the alleged threats. He is also charged with knowingly entering a restricted building without lawful authority in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

As of Thursday, he was being held at the jail in Fannin County, Texas.

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According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, FBI agents interviewed Reffitt’s wife and children at their suburban Dallas home on Jan. 15, when he was arrested for the unlawful entry warrant. GPS data from his cellphone placed Reffitt near the Capitol building the night of the riot.

Video from the scene, including footage shot by Reuters, shows a man identified by agents as Reffitt being pepper-sprayed by a Capitol police officer “at or past the police line protecting the building,” the court records state. The footage appears to show Reffitt standing on the Capitol steps as he flushes his eyes with a bottle of water.

See a clip of the Reuters footage below.

Reffitt’s wife identified him as a member of the far-right 3 Percenters militia group, the court documents indicate. She described him as “super passionate” and prone to extreme statements.

“Militia extremists sometimes call themselves 3 Percenters (‘III%ers’ or ‘threepers’) based on the myth that only 3% of American colonists took up arms against the British during the American Revolution,” a footnote in the complaint states. “Some III%ers regard the present-day U.S. government as analogous to British authorities during the Revolution in terms of infringements on civil liberties.”

‘You know what happens to traitors’

Reffitt’s son, who is an adult but lives with his parents, told investigators he was there Jan. 8 when his father and another man returned home from Washington.

Reffitt told his son and other family members that he was at the Capitol when the insurrection took place. Reffitt, who federal investigators identified in footage from the melee, said that he’d gone, armed, to Washington to “protect the country.”

“We stormed the Capitol,” Reffitt, who wore a helmet fitted with a GoPro camera, told his family, according to his son. He said he’d captured some of the activities on the camera he wore.

The son said he saw his father bring an AR-15 rifle and a Smith & Wesson pistol from the vehicle into the house the day he came home. The guns were seized during a Jan. 15 search of the Reffitt home.

On Jan. 11, Reffitt said in front of his children, which included his juvenile daughter, that he had to “erase everything” because the FBI was now watching him, the complaint states.

“Reffitt further told son that if son crossed the line and reported Reffitt to the police, putting the family in jeopardy, Reffitt would have no option but to do (his) duty for (his) country and ‘do what he had to do,’” according to the document.

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“Are you threatening us?” his son asked.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Reffitt responded.

The son believed that his father had been threatening his life.

Read the criminal complaint against Reffitt below.

A short time later, according to Reffitt’s son, his sister was using her cellphone to talk to her friends.

Reffitt told the girl that if she “crossed the line” and recorded him or put the alleged threat on social media, he would “put a bullet through” her phone.

“Daughter asked Reffitt who (he) was making them choose sides and threatening son and daughter,” the complaint states.

When Reffitt’s wife returned home later that day, the couple’s children were upset, the woman told FBI agents. They told her about the threats from their father.

“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and you know what happens to traitors,” Reffitt said, according to his wife and children. “Traitors get shot.”

When she confronted him about what the children told her, he repeated the statements, the complaint states. In response to her telling him he couldn’t threaten the children, he allegedly said he “was trying to protect the family, and if someone was a traitor, then that’s what was going to happen.”

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Reffitt’s wife told investigators she did not believe he would act on his words. She said neither she nor the children felt threatened, but were instead “disturbed” by his statements.

The couple’s daughter told agents she didn’t feel her father was a threat to the family and that she “did not want to further incriminate Reffitt given that (he) was already being arrested,” the court documents state.

When Reffitt was questioned by investigators, he told them he’d brought his handgun with him to Washington, but said he had disassembled it to comply with the gun laws in the district. He also said he had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6 but did not go inside the building.

Reffitt is among more than 100 people from across the U.S. who have been charged following the riot at the Capitol. Five people died as a result of the clash, including a Trump supporter shot by a Capitol police officer.

A Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, died of injuries he suffered during the riot.

Cox Media Group