Retired pastor Kevin Horton of Missoula attended the Trump rally on January 6 in Washington, D.C. along with hundreds of thousands of others to express his concern over issues from the Presidential election.

Horton said the event started off as he joined with the massive crowds that had descended on Washington, D.C.

“It started out at nine o'clock with prayer with the whole crowd,” said Horton. “We're talking about a million people, or surely at least 500,000 people reciting the Lord's Prayer. I mean, this was a very nice, a beautiful time, especially me as a as a former pastor. I just felt like wow, this is really cool that we're honoring God in what we're doing, and so that was great.”

After walking for a great distance, Horton said he and a large crowd of others made the turn towards the U.S. Capitol building, and that is where the marked changes began.

“Somebody's whipping up the crowd and he said the Capitol has been breached, the Capital has been breached,” he said. “Let's go! So we continue to walk there and all of a sudden we heard boom, boom, and saying ‘what is that sound like cannons?’ and it was the tear gas canisters being blown off and I thought, what is going on? I mean this is not us.”

Horton said that the people closer to the Capitol building were dressed much differently that the majority of the crowd.

“You look at who's there and I'd say about four out of five of them have helmets,” he said. “They have goggles, so they're not visible. They have vests on that are leather vests to protect them from beating, and they're the ones that are pushing in and they're the ones who made the initial breach. This was a planned event; clearly a planned event.”

Horton said he personally witnessed a young man who ascended the steps of the Capitol building and spoke to a police officer.

“The young man went over and there was a door open into the Capitol and there was a police officer standing by the door, kind of side by side beside it,” he said. “And he was just standing there and the young boy could have walked right in, but he stopped and he saw the police officer who didn't say a thing to him, and he turned to him and asked, ‘can I go in?’ and the officer said, ‘No’, and the young man turned around and went back. That didn't make the paper.”

Horton appeared on Talk Back to relate his own personal experiences at the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6.

Hear the conversation with Kevin Horton here.

 

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