SALT LAKE CITY — A defense employee at Hill Air Force Base is accused of joining rioters in pushing back a police line during the U.S. Capitol riot.
Hal Ray Huddleston, 66, of Ogden, was arrested Monday, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release. He is charged with a felony count of obstruction of law enforcement and four misdemeanors.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., say Huddleston traveled to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Charging documents accuse Huddleston of joining other rioters in using a flagpole to push back against a police line. He’s also suspected of entering the closed capitol building.
Court records say the FBI received a tip about Huddleston after he wrote on Facebook that he went to “storm the capital (sic), break stuff, fight with the police and be shot with tear gas.”
And when the FBI went to find Huddleston in late 2021, he was working as a contractor at the Defense Logistics Agency on Hill Air Force Base.
A spokesman for the Defense Logistics Agency verified Huddleston has been employed at that agency’s distribution center on the base since Feb. 28, 2021.
Huddleston is the 17th Utah resident to be charged in connection to the insurrection.
Connecticut and Iowa have similar populations to Utah and are closer to Washington. According to a database maintained by NPR, Connecticut has 10 riot defendants; Iowa has nine.
