Jan. 6 rioter from NC in ‘Blue Lives Matter’ shirt attacked officers, pleads guilty

Julia Coin
·2 min read
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A couple traded their small North Carolina town for Capitol Hill’s chaos on Jan. 6, 2021. On Monday, one of them pleaded guilty for the trip’s itinerary.

After traveling to Washington, D.C., in matching “Blue Lives Matter” sweatshirts, the pair broke through walls of Metropolitan Police Department officers outside the Capitol, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“Them knuckles right there, from one of those motherf---er’s faces at the Capitol,” Curtis Davis says in a video he took of his injured hand while in Washington with Tanya Bishop.

Davis charged into the Capitol rotunda at 3 p.m. that day, joining a crowd of rioting Donald Trump supporters who were enraged by his false claims of a stolen election. There, Davis “forcibly attacked” an officer and lunged for his baton.

Snow Hill to Capitol Hill: NC couple arrested after FBI investigation into Jan. 6 riots

By 3:09 p.m., he’d punched an officer’s face shield and another officer’s head, according to court records. He also used a police shield — one he pried from an officer’s hand — to help push rioters into the wall of law-enforcement authorities lining the Capitol.

After being expelled from the rotunda, he circled back to throw more punches, according to found footage and body camera video.

Tanya Bishop, of Greene County, N.C., stands on top of a police car during the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. She faces felony and misdemeanor charges after an FBI investigation placed her at the Capitol that day.
Tanya Bishop, of Greene County, N.C., stands on top of a police car during the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. She faces felony and misdemeanor charges after an FBI investigation placed her at the Capitol that day.

An FBI agent investigated the couple’s involvement after someone submitted a tip in October 2021, according to court documents. Greene County’s sheriff identified Davis, saying Davis had previous encounters with law enforcement and was last arrested about a month after the riot on Feb. 5, 2021.

The FBI arrested Davis in Snow Hill — an eastern N.C. town of less than 2,000 people — nearly three years later, on Dec. 8, 2023.

The 45-year-old pleaded guilty on Monday to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, who will sentence Davis on Oct. 18.

Bishop, Davis’ partner, has a status hearing scheduled for June 27. If both are sentenced, they will join at least 30 North Carolina Jan. 6 defendants who have been sentenced so far.

In the 41 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,450 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 500 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigations remain ongoing.