DOJ charges two brothers in Jan. 6 assault on a New York Times photographer

WASHINGTON — Two brothers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey who allegedly assaulted a New York Times photographer and stole her camera after they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were arrested by the FBI on Thursday.

Philip Walker, a 52-year-old from Upper Chichester, Pennsylvania, and David Walker, a 49-year-old from Delran, New Jersey, face charges of forcibly taking an item from a person and assault with the intent to commit another felony, as well as other standard Jan. 6 misdemeanors for entering the Capitol. Philip Walker faces a separate charge of willfully and maliciously destroying personal property, for allegedly discarding the camera in a body of water.

The men the FBI identified as the Walker brothers, as seen pointing at a New York Times photographer before her assault.

The photographer in question, though not named in court documents, is Erin Schaff, who has written about her assault on Jan. 6, in which she said rioters inside the Capitol threw her to the floor, broke one of her cameras and stole the other. (Schaff has covered fallout from the riot, including photographing a separate Jan. 6 defendant named Brian Mock for a feature story on Mock's relationship with his son, who turned Mock in to the FBI and testified at his dad's trial last year).

Philip Walker, federal authorities said, conducted an interview with the FBI the week after the Jan. 6 attack in which he admitted he got into a physical confrontation with an individual who he claimed to believe was a member of antifa. Philip Walker said that the individual fell to the ground and that he took their camera. “He admitted to leaving the Capitol with the camera, and disposing of it in a body of water while en route to his residence in Pennsylvania,” an FBI affidavit stated.

But an account by Schaff, an award-winning photographer, counters the notion that Philip Walker thought Schaff was a member of "antifa" during the assault (although assaulting a person and stealing their camera is a crime, regardless of affiliation). Schaff wrote in a piece published in the immediate hours after the attack that her assailants became more enraged when they realized that she worked for The New York Times.

“Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry. They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched," she wrote, referring to other rioters in the Capitol building. "At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away."

Two men the FBI identified as the Walker brothers, seen on the right in face masks, after assaulting a New York Times photographer.

Schaff wrote that she eventually made her way to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suite, which other rioters were vandalizing, before finding a location to hide her remaining camera, the one that was broken but not stolen.

Without her press credentials, which had also been stolen, police who were trying to clear the building didn't believe her claims that she was a journalist when they encountered her, Schaff said.

"They drew their guns, pointed them and yelled at me to get down on my hands and knees," Schaff wrote. "As I lay on the ground, two other photojournalists came into the hall and started shouting 'She’s a journalist!'"

Reached Thursday, Schaff referred NBC News to a New York Times spokesperson, who said the paper is grateful to authorities "for their persistence in pursuing justice in this case."

"Independent, fact-based journalism is a cornerstone of democracy and attacks against reporters should be a grave concern to anyone who cares about an informed citizenry," Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement.

The men identified as the Walker brothers making their way to the Capitol on Jan. 6

Online "sedition hunters" — the citizen sleuths who have aided the FBI in hundreds of arrests of Jan. 6 rioters — had been frustrated by the slow pace of the case against the men, whom they identified to the FBI long ago. As NBC News reported earlier this year, federal authorities put out a public call for information on one of the suspects in January, even though the sleuths said that both brothers' names were already in the bureau’s possession.

About 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, and federal prosecutors have secured more than 1,000 convictions. Hundreds of defendants have received probationary sentences, but more than 600 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison, the sentence imposed on the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy.

In court cases, federal prosecutors have laid out extensive video evidence of Donald Trump supporters brandishing or using firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive “Trump” billboard, “Trump” flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device during the brutal attack, which injured at least 140 police officers.

Former President Trump is facing federal criminal charges for his actions on and leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, with an indictment from a federal grand jury alleging he engaged in a campaign to spread "unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing" misinformation about the 2020 election in order to stay in office. He has pleaded not guilty.

While many Jan. 6 defendants still hold onto false beliefs about the 2020 election, several have told judges that they now feel like gullible “idiots” for falling for the lies Trump was spreading. During a debate this week, Trump once again refused to acknowledge the fact that he lost the 2020 presidential election and dodged questions about his actions during the Capitol siege.

Trump has referred to Jan. 6 defendants as "hostages," "warriors," and “unbelievable patriots," claiming during the debate Tuesday that Capitol riot defendants had been “treated so badly." He has repeatedly promised to pardon "a large portion" of Jan. 6 defendants and said that he'd "absolutely" consider pardoning every single Jan. 6 rioter — a group that would include hundreds of criminals convicted of assaulting police officers — if elected on Nov. 5.