In famous Capitol riot photo, NC man stood face to face with a cop. Now he faces jail.

Nathan Baer’s YouTube channel, “The American Patriot,” includes a video of him performing composer George Frideric Handel’s work, “Why Do the Nations So Furiously Rage.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, according to the FBI, Baer took his show on the road.

Photos and videos from the deadly Capitol riot place the 43-year-old Asheville man and classically trained vocalist at the epicenter of the violence — inside the lower west tunnel where police fought hand-to-hand for hours against hundreds of Donald Trump supporters intent on entering the building to disrupt congressional certification of the ex-president’s election loss to Joe Biden.

Baer also appears in one of the most iconic photos from that chaotic day — standing virtually face to face with Michael Fanone moments before the Washington, D.C., police officer is dragged away by the mob, a U.S. flag with a pro-police thin blue stripe waving above them.

On Monday, Baer became at least the 30th North Carolinian federally charged in connection with the attack. He stands accused of the felony offense of obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and three related misdemeanors. His case will be prosecuted in Washington.

Two-and-a-half years after the riot, North Carolina’s footprint in the political violence continues to grow. Baer becomes the second N.C. resident charged this month, the fifth this year. A dozen N.C. residents already have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from nine days to almost four years.

More lengthy sentences are expected in coming months — for a former High Point police officer convicted of multiple felonies and two N.C. leaders of extremist groups who have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, meaning they plotted to use force to overthrow an act of government.

The riot has been linked to at least five deaths and the injuries of about 140 police officers. As of June 6, almost 1,050 arrests have been made. About a third of the defendants — now including Baer — have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police; 109 are accused of using a deadly or dangerous weapon against police or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

A criminal investigation into the role of the Trump White House fanning the flames of the violence continues and could lead to charges against the former president.

Fanone is among the best known of the injured officers. He says he was shocked, stomped and beaten — suffering a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury — after he was dragged down the Capitol steps and surrounded by the mob. He did not respond Monday to a Facebook message from The Charlotte Observer seeking comment about Baer’s arrest.

An FBI affidavit filed in Baer’s case does not accuse him of attacking Fanone when they stood inches apart. Instead, it describes the Asheville man joining a mass of other rioters inside the tunnel in “heave ho” efforts to overwhelm police lines.

The FBI searched for the stringy-haired man in the Fanone photograph for three months, receiving more than a dozen tips on his identity. None of them was Baer.

Finally, a former classmate of Baer’s at the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Ind., came forward to identify him. He directed agents to Baer’s YouTube channel, where his 2015 performance of Handel’s 18th century work was waiting.

“Why do the nations so furiously rage together,” Baer sang in German with his soaring bass voice. “Why do the people imagine a vain thing.”