Capitol riot suspect arrested after FBI use face recognition on girlfriend’s Instagram

Authorities allege Stephen Chase Randolph assaulted a Capitol police officer

Federal authorities have arrested a Kentucky man over his alleged role in the 6 January Capitol riots by using facial recognition to identify him from his girlfriend’s Instagram.

Stephen Chase Randolph, of Harrodsburg, was arrested on Tuesday “in connection with the violence at the US Capitol,” FBI Louisville said on Twitter.

According to an affidavit obtained by HuffPost, authorities allege that Mr Randolph and other protesters knocked over a US Capitol Police (USCP) officer while pushing through Capitol barriers.

The suspect allegedly caused the officer’s “head to hit the stairs behind her, resulting in a loss of consciousness.”

Officials allege he “continued to assault two other USCP officers by “physically pushing, shoving, grabbing, and generally resisting the officers and interfering with their official duties.”

The FBI released images of the suspect they allege is Mr Randolph in late January, designating him as #168-AFO because he was wanted for “assault on federal officers”.

The agency later linked images of the wanted suspect at the riots with photographs of Mr Randolph using face recognition technology on his girlfriend’s Instagram account, the affidavit said.

Agents said that they used an “open-source facial comparison tool known to provide reliable results in the past” to match photographs of the subject.

“The facial recognition tool yielded results associated with the Instagram page of an individual from Kentucky who appeared to be the girlfriend of the subject,” the affidavit reads.

The document also alleges that the social media account contained a photograph of the subject wearing the same grey hat that was seen in videos at the Capitol.

Agents then claimed they traced Mr Randolph’s Facebook page through his girlfriend’s public Facebook account and then those of family members to find his place of work.

Two agents are said to have gone undercover to speak to Mr Randolph at his workplace and spoke to him about his alleged involvement in the riot, the affidavit says.

He was arrested one week following the undercover visit, the document says.

The FBI said Mr Randolph has been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer causing bodily injury, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, and obstruction of justice.

He remains in federal custody and is expected to make an initial appearance in court on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if he had legal representation available to comment on his behalf.