US Capitol rioter who smashed Speaker's Lobby door charged with burglary in Virginia

Winnipeg Free Press

20-05-2025

A Virginia man has been charged with felony burglary after being pardoned for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, which included smashing the door panel that rioter Ashli Babbitt tried to breach before police shot her.
Zachary Jordan Alam, 33, of Centreville, was arrested May 9 in a neighborhood outside of Richmond, Henrico County police said in a statement.
Officers had responded to a call of breaking and entering, where the homeowner said an unknown man came in through a back door, police said.
'The man took several items before he was observed by people in the home and was asked to leave,' police said. 'Officers located the man in a nearby neighborhood and arrested him.'
The attorney listed in court documents for Alam, Dannie Sutton, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. A preliminary hearing for the burglary case is scheduled for late June in Henrico County court.
Alam isn't the first Capitol rioter to be accused of breaking the law after getting pardoned by President Donald Trump. An Indiana man, Matthew Huttle, was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy during a traffic stop six days after receiving his pardon.
Huttle struggled with the deputy after learning that he was under arrest for being a habitual traffic offender. A county prosecutor in Indiana later ruled out charges against the deputy.
On his first day back in office in January, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers.
They included Alam, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in November. The federal judge who handed down the punishment described Alam as one of the most violent and aggressive rioters.
'Those are not the actions of a patriot,' U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said at Alam's sentencing. 'To say otherwise is delusional.'
Alam attended then-President Trump's 'Stop the Steal' rally near the White House before joining the mob that attacked the Capitol. He helped other rioters scale barriers outside the Capitol before entering the building through a broken window.
On his journey through the Capitol, Alam screamed obscenities at police, tried to kick in a hallway door and threw a red velvet rope at officers from a balcony. He joined other rioters in trying to breach doors leading to the House chamber, but the entrances were barricaded with furniture and guarded by police.
Pushing past officers, Alam punched and shattered three window panes on the doors of the Speaker's Lobby. Another rioter handed him a helmet, which he used to smash the door and glass panes.
Other rioters yelled that police officers behind the door had drawn their guns, but Alam continued to smash the last glass pane. Babbitt, who was unarmed, tried to climb through the broken window and was fatally shot.
The Capitol police officer who shot Babbitt was cleared of any wrongdoing. That hasn't stopped many Capitol riot apologists, including Trump, from portraying the Air Force veteran as a martyr.
The Trump administration has agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that Babbitt's family filed over her shooting, a person with knowledge of the settlement told The Associated Press on Monday.
Alam had asked for a pardon at his sentencing hearing, telling the judge he believed in his heart that he was doing the right thing.
'Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what's right,' he said.
Alam graduated from the University of Virginia before dropping out of the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine. His defense attorney for the Capitol riot trial, Steven Metcalf, described Alam as a troubled loner who 'just wanted to fit in somewhere because he has been rejected by everyone else in his life.'
In a letter to the court, Alam's mother said his father disowned him after he didn't become a doctor and worked various jobs, including unloading trucks and bussing tables.
'Zachary had turned to alcohol and drug use and associated with people who were negative influences; he began committing misdemeanor crimes to survive,' she wrote.
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Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.