YouTuber charged for violence at Capitol riot causing media to abandon equipment

‘Yo, I guess we should loot now, right?’ Zvonimir Jurlina is alleged to have said during the 6 January Capitol riot

A screenshot shows a man alleged to be Zvonimir Jurlina at the 6 January, 2020, Capitol insurrection. ( )

Zvonimir Jurlina, a YouTuber, appears to have been arrested and charged by the FBI in connection with an alleged assault on media workers covering the 6 January Capitol insurrection.

According to a criminal complaint filed on Monday, Mr Jurlina has been charged with acts of physical violence and destruction of property at a media staging area set up as the riot unfolded.

According to the complaint, which was released by the Justice Department, Mr Jurlina was identified in photos shared by the agency online in a bid to identify participants in the 6 January riot.

The complaint states that the man identified as Mr Jurlina had "kicked and/or stomped on equipment that belong to media outlets" and assisted in an attempt to set fire to a pile of “destroyed and/or abandoned” media equipment.

It also states that he "incited violent acts that caused members of the media to vacate the staging area and abandon their equipment”.

Mr Jurlina is further accused of having "verbally encouraged” others to steal media equipment and is alleged to have taken a cordless microphone belonging to a media outlet himself as what he called “a souvenir”.

According to the document, the YouTuber live-streamed events at the US Capitol in a twelve-part video series under the channel "Zykotik".

In one of the videos, the narrator, believed to be Mr Jurlina, could be heard cheering on as others were seen stomping on what appeared to be a camera fixed to a tripod.

“Yes, Yes! Oh sh**. Yo boys, we got...this is our f***ing sh**! Wooo. Wooo. F*** yeah!” he is alleged to have shouted.

At another point, the narrator says: “Yo, I guess we should loot now, right? This is pretty expensive equipment”.

“I’m thinking maybe I should just grab it up and then go to a pawn shop,” he says, according to the charging documents.

He later proclaims: “I’ve got a souvenir,” before laughing.

Mr Jurlina has appealed to Donald Trump for help in his case, asking the former president to help him pay for his legal fees, according to Reuters.

“Donald Trump, please pay for my legal fees, because this all happened because of you,” a man identified as Mr Jurlina says in a video shared online.

“I did nothing wrong,” he says in the video, branding himself a “political prisoner”.