Top inset: Tommy Tatum appears on a Rumble video stream, July 2022. Bottom inset: Tatum, circled in yellow, allegedly taunting police at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. Background: A smiling Tatum is circled in yellow outside of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (All photos provided by the Justice Department.)
Thomas Eugene Tatum, also known as Tommy Tatum around the jail in Washington, D.C., where he has for months regularly attended a nightly vigil held there for Jan. 6 defendants, has been arrested and charged with one felony and several misdemeanors after prosecutors allege he obstructed, impeded and otherwise interfered with police defending the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the 2020 election.
According to a statement from the Justice Department released late Wednesday, Tatum, 48, was arrested by the FBI in Oxford, Mississippi, though he is a resident of Greenville.
Tatum has become somewhat of a fixture in Washington, D.C., since Jan. 6. He served as a defense witness at the trial of Jan. 6 defendant Brian Mock — who was convicted and sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison in February for assaulting police at the Capitol — and was banished from attending proceedings at the criminal trial of Kyle Fitzsimons . Fitzsimons, sporting a butcher’s coat with his first name stitched into it, was sentenced to 87 months for his vicious assault of police protecting the Capitol. Fitzsimons so badly assaulted former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell that Gonell was forced to go into retirement.
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As NBC News reported in 2022, Tatum, who considers himself an independent journalist, confronted two police officers serving as witnesses for the prosecution, taunting them as he filmed on his phone.
“Do you think you honored your father’s memory by trying to kill me that day?” he said to one D.C. Metropolitan Police officer he trailed outside of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. The officer had testified earlier that day in the Fitzsimons trial.
“How does that make you feel as a man, does that bring your Vietnamese father honor … I hope you take this dishonor to your family to the grave,” Tatum said.
He also confronted Gonell, recording and posting about the interaction online. NBC News reported that Gonell was stopped by Tatum outside of a bathroom in the courthouse. Gonell’s attorney David Laufman got into a heated argument with the Mississippi man shortly after Tatum tried to get onto an elevator with Laufman, Gonell and an NBC News reporter. Tatum was later heard outside of the courthouse accusing Gonell of perjury.
Federal prosecutors said footage from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 shows Tatum at the Lower West Plaza, where some of the worst violence of the day occurred, berating and taunting police, often just inches away from them. In an FBI statement of facts, investigators say Tatum continually ignored commands to stand down or leave the area and often put himself at the front of the crowds.
“Y’all surrounded now, padnah,” Tatum allegedly said to one officer. “I rebuke you in the name [of] Jesus … your little pepper gas got no effect on me.”
Police overwhelmed by the mob were forced to retreat from an area where prosecutors say Tatum was essentially egging on the crowd as he screamed at police that they were doing a “walk of shame.”
Regularly putting himself in the middle of police lines and encroaching rioters — including some of the “first ranks of rioters,” the FBI alleges — Tatum was recorded advising those around him: “Don’t run back, just stand your ground, take a breath, take a breath, re-group.”
He filmed police as he offered this advice, the statement of facts alleges.
“They’re scared as s— right now,” he boasted before calling out “take their helmets!” and “take their heads!”
A clip of the footage Tatum recorded included in court records shows rioters passing around a stolen riot shield at this time. As a police line faltered, Tatum allegedly kept crowing directions at the mob, telling peoples to “use their batons, get their batons, use their weapons against them, use their batons!”
With police backed into a corner, he allegedly called out: “Yeah, run b——! We got you mother——- now! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!”
Prosecutors say Tatum waltzed right up to officers with a flagpole in his hand but it is unclear what exactly ensued as he clutched it. Police bodycam footage is unclear, the FBI acknowledged in its statement of facts, highlighting that while Tatum can be seen in video “walking within a short distance of the police line with his flagpole extended and parallel to the ground, with the end of the pole at or near chest level of the officers and in close proximity of the police line,” the body worn camera footage “does not show the end of Tatum’s flagpole making contact with any officers.”
“After Tatum initially approaches with the flagpole lowered in the police line’s direction, a second rioter places his hand on the flagpole and briefly appears to keep the flagpole oriented in the direction of the police line,” the FBI affidavit notes.
Tatum eventually moved from the Lower West Plaza up to the also chaotic Lower West Terrace and there, he allegedly gathered near the terrace tunnel and entered its threshold before the tunnel was briefly cleared by police. This was shortly before 4:20 p.m. and prosecutors said Tatum and other rioters began “making repeated collective efforts to surge forwards against an unseen line of police officers located below or behind the viewpoint of the CCTV camera and blocking the rioters’ access to the U.S. Capitol.”
Once Tatum was “gradually” expelled, investigators said open source footage shows him sticking close to the tunnel exterior while officers were actively being assaulted.
Though a federal public defender was first assigned to Tatum’s case, a magistrate docket entry reveals that the public defender has since been replaced by attorney Paul Chiniche. Chiniche did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. A notice on the docket states Tatum appears in court next for an identity hearing on Friday via video conference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jan Virden.
A preliminary hearing in Washington, D.C., has not yet been scheduled.
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The post ‘Take their heads!’: Flagpole-carrying man known for harassing Jan. 6 officers and regular presence at jail vigil arrested first appeared on Law & Crime .
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