While NC man battled police at Capitol, an attempted murder charge waited back home

A North Carolina man has been charged with attacking police outside of the U.S. Capitol when he already was out on bond for an attempted murder charge back home.

Federal court documents show that Matthew Beddingfield of Middlesex, east of Raleigh, was arrested Tuesday in Smithfield. He is charged with multiple crimes, including the felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon or inflicting bodily injury.

Beddingfield made his first appearance in Raleigh federal court on Wednesday and was ordered to remain in custody until his detention hearing Monday. As of Wednesday night, he was being held in the Wake County jail.

Beddingfield, 21, becomes at least the 18th North Carolinian charged in connection with the Capitol violence, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters broke through police lines and stormed into the building to stop congressional certification of the former president’s 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden.

At least five deaths have been linked to riot. Some 140 police officers were injured. Damage to the Capitol is estimated at $1.5 million.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in his case, Beddingfield jumped a barricade and attacked police at least three times on Jan. 6, 2021. In the first assault, he used the flagpole of an American flag he carried to jab at officers. In the others, which were caught on camera both inside and outside of the Capitol, Beddingfield appears to be throwing a metal rod at police, the affidavit shows.

These offenses allegedly occurred while he was freed on bond for a first-degree attempted murder charge in Johnston County. Beddingfield was arrested Dec. 14, 2019, in connection with a shooting outside a Walmart in Smithfield, according to the Johnston County Report. In August 2021, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon and received probation, NBC reported.

On Jan. 6, Beddingfield and his father drove to Washington for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” Rally, documents allege, in which the lame-duck president baselessly claimed widespread election fraud and urged those on hand to march on the Capitol to protest.

The Beddingfields also attended “The Million MAGA March” in November, the FBI says.

In his affidavit for the Matthew Beddingfield case, FBI Special Agent Brian Surer says the defendant’s father, identified as J.B., previously denied to media that his son was in Washington on Jan. 6 or any other date.

Videos, photographs and J.B.’s social media posts prove differently.

“WE ARE HERE TO TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK FROM THOSE COMMIE BASTARDS,” Beddingfield’s father said in a Facebook post on Jan. 6, the affidavit alleges.

Asked by a member of his audience if he were back in Washington, J.B. replied, “Yessir,” according to the affidavit.

Matthew Beddingfield was first publicly identified in a HuffPost story in March after online sleuths found his mugshot and used his father’s Facebook page to confirm his identity.

Photos included in the affidavit show the Beddingfields walking together outside the Capitol. The father has not been charged with any crimes.

Matthew Beddingfield, however, becomes the latest in a series of North Carolina men in their teens or 20s who have been linked to the violence:

▪ Aiden Bilyard of Cary, 19 at the time of his arrest, was caught on video firing bear spray at police and using a baseball bat to smash his way into the Capitol, prosecutors say.

▪ Matthew Wood of Reidsville was 23 when he was charged. According to court documents, Wood told the FBI that he only entered the Capitol to keep from being trampled by the mob. Prosecutors say Wood, in fact, was one of the first rioters to spill into the building and was seen screaming and gesturing for more attackers to battle police. He later took to social media to boast of his deeds, according to an FBI affidavit in his case.

▪ James Grant, 29, of Cary, was one of the first members of the mob to attack police outside the Capitol, prosecutors allege. Released pending trial, Grant is now back in federal custody after his December arrest in Garner on a DWI charge while he was carrying a semi-automatic rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition in his car.

▪ Grayson Sherrill, 22, of Cherryville is accused in a December indictment of using a metal pole to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate and interfere with” a D.C. police officer.

The four are among eight North Carolinians charged with felonies in the Capitol case. All face potentially prison terms if convicted.

In all, some 750 arrests have been made; more than 225 — Beddingfield being the latest — have been charged with assaulting or impeding police.

This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 5:52 PM with the headline "While NC man battled police at Capitol, an attempted murder charge waited back home."

Michael Gordon

The Charlotte Observer

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Michael Gordon has been the Observer’s legal affairs writer since 2013. He has been an editor and reporter at the paper since 1992, occasionally writing about schools, religion, politics and sports. He spent two summers as “Bikin Mike,” filing stories as he pedaled across the Carolinas.