William Beals, a violent Three Percenter who was involved in the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol, went on to link up with neo-Nazis in Tennessee to harass drag shows.
More than two years later, the FBI has arrested Beals, Raw Story has learned.
Raw Story reviewed a Facebook update by one of Beals’ friends, who wrote that “a brother of ours has been took in.” That update from Thursday was then shared by another friend of Beals, who added the hashtag “#FBICorruption.”
While the federal complaint against the 52-year-old Beals has not yet been unsealed, Beals is scheduled to appear by video before a magistrate judge in federal court in Knoxville, Tenn. this afternoon, according to the court calendar for the Eastern District of Tennessee. It was not immediately clear what charges he faces.
Beals is currently listed as being housed at the Hamilton County Correctional Facility in Chattanooga, Tenn. Beals could not be reached for comment, and it is not clear whether he has a lawyer.
Beals’ arrest is the culmination of legal troubles that have been mounting for months.
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In June, Raw Story exclusively reported that the Tennessee Valley Authority Police banned Beals from its power facilities.
The TVA, a federally owned utility that provides power to Tennessee and portions of surrounding states, notified Beals that he was banned from its facilities for “unauthorized access to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Beals was a union carpenter and has said he worked at a nuclear power plant.
Beals is a self-identified member of the authoritarian Three Percenter movement that falsely positions itself as a modern-day equivalent to the American patriots who fought the British during the Revolutionary War.
On Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, publicly available media showed Beals interacting with other Three Percenters, including Jeremy Liggett, leader of Guardians of Freedom militia group; Robert Gieswein, who is currently serving a four-year prison sentence for assaulting an officer; and Cory Ray Brannan, a former detention officer from Texas.
Beals has publicly boasted that he fought left-wing counter-protesters on the eve of the assault on the Capitol. On Jan. 6, online sleuths tracked Beals attempting to climb a media tower, which earned him the nickname #TowerPup.
Beals also was captured climbing the scaffolding for the inaugural risers, facing off against a line of Capitol police officers at the west plaza and walking inside the Capitol building. Afterward, Beals was seen carrying off a police riot shield and posing with Gieswein.
Following his involvement in the attack on the Capitol, Beals became active in right-wing campaigns to oppose COVID-19 restrictions in the Chattanooga, Tenn. area. He also became embroiled in a battle with the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services over custody of his daughter, who was a student in Catoosa County Public Schools.
Beginning last fall, Beals began protesting against drag shows in Tennessee, frequently appearing with Sean Kauffmann, leader of the neo-Nazi group Tennessee Active Club, along with other far-right groups such as the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, National Justice Party and Vinland Rebels.
Despite being under investigation for his role in the attack on the Capitol at the time, Beals demanded that a Chattanooga police sergeant search a community theater for evidence that minors were being served alcohol during a drag show in November 2022, as previously reported by Raw Story.
The police obliged Beals, but found no evidence of violations. A couple months later, Beals challenged police in Cookeville, Tenn. after they pulled over a car driven by Kauffmann, having observed a passenger throw a projectile at left-wing counter-protesters.
The passenger, a neo-Nazi named Robert Bray, admitted to throwing a stink bomb at counter-protesters while wearing a pistol strapped to his hip. Asked by an officer if he was looking for a pretext to shoot the counter-protesters in self-defense, Bray responded, “Those aren’t people.”
As one officer was questioning Bray, Beals walked up and asked to speak with them. Speaking to another officer, he questioned why they were not cracking down on “antifa,” later identifying himself as a Three Percenter.
During the anti-drag protests in Chattanooga and Cookeville, Tenn., Beals walked into the middle of the street and challenged counter-protesters to fight. Posting on a neo-Nazi channel on the messaging app Telegram in June, Beals explained his strategy for instigating violence.
“Most groups won’t walk across the street and confront antifa,” he wrote. “I do, and I do my best to get those retards going to cross the street on me because it’s entertainment to me to knock a libtard out.”
Around the same time, Beals escalated threats against Josh Brandon, an antifascist TikTok creator who frequently found himself on the opposite side of the street from Beals during anti-drag protests.
On at least one occasion, Beals drove his truck in front of Brandon’s house, according to surveillance footage, and called Brandon and described his vehicle to him, indicating he had been there. Beals also told Brandon that he’s been convicted of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.
In one of many phone calls to Brandon, Beals challenged him to meet him at a Pride celebration in Franklin, Tenn.
“You’re a dead son of a bitch,” Beals said. “If you come across me again, I will put my f---ing foot in your face. Meet me in Franklin, motherf---er.”
UPDATE: During a hearing in federal court in Knoxville on Friday, Magistrate Judge Jill E. McCook ordered Beals released on bond, and a prosecutor assigned to the case confirmed that the government was not seeking pre-trial detention. McCook set a preliminary hearing for Beals on Sept. 5 in the District of Columbia, where all Jan. 6 cases are being tried.
McCook set Beals' conditions of release to accommodate his employment, which requires him to cross back and forth across the Georgia-Tennessee state line to travel from home to work. Beals told the court he is currently employed at FedEx driver, and that he travels from his home in northern Georgia to a FedEx office in Chattanooga, and then back across the state line to drive a daily delivery route in Blairsville, Ga.
