According to court documents, Jesse James Rumson, who donned a panda costume and participated in the January 6, 2021, disturbance at the United States Capitol, has been convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer.
Earlier this month, Rumson sacrificed his right to a jury trial in favor of a bench trial. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols convicted him on all eight counts Friday of assaulting and resisting Prince George’s County Cpl. Scott Ainsworth, as well as disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. September will see Rumson’s sentence.
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After rioters ripped down a door in the Senate wing on January 6, 2021, prosecutors said Rumson jumped over railings and was “among the first approximately twenty” to enter the building through that entryway. On that day, a photo captured Rumson donning a panda costume and displaying a white banner with the slogan “Don’t tread on me.” According to the charging documents, he was known as “#SeditionPanda” in various online communities.
According to prosecutors, Rumson lost his panda head and was shackled before being forced out of the Capitol by another door.
However, in court documents, prosecutors offered photographic evidence indicating that rioters assisted in removing the handcuffs from Rumson’s wrists.
He allegedly raced past the crowd outside the Capitol and towards a line of officers defending the building after his liberation. He then allegedly grabbed an officer’s mask, which “forced the officer’s head and neck back and upwards.”
Prosecutors presented several pictures of Rumson, both with and without the panda hat. More than two years after the Capitol assault, prosecutors arrested Rumson in February 2023.
According to NBC News, Ainsworth, the attacked officer, testified about Rumson’s assault last week.
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, the Justice Department prosecuted more than 1,200 criminal cases. More than 700 had pleaded guilty to various offenses, and many more had been convicted.
