A California police-chief-turned-yoga-instructor-turned-“Stop the Steal”-organizer has been indicted on conspiracy charges, along with five other alleged Capitol rioters, for their role in the events of Jan. 6. Alan Hostetter was indicted Wednesday on four charges, along with fellow Californians Russell Taylor, 40; Erik Scott Warner, 45; Felipe Antonio “Tony” Martinez, 47; Derek Kinnison, 39; and Ronald Mele, 51. The men are all members of the Three Percenters militia group, the indictment states, and allegedly brought two-way radios, bear spray, knives, stun batons, bulletproof vests, and a range of other weaponry to use in storming the Capitol. Seamus Hughes, a researcher with Program on Extremism at George Washington University, first reported on the unsealed indictment.
The indictment is not the first time the feds have accused rioters of conspiring together before the unprecedented and deadly attack intended to stave off a Joe Biden presidency. Members of two other extremist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, have also been charged with conspiracy offenses. And at least one baseball-bat-wielding suspected Three Percenter associate was charged as far back as mid-January.
But these are the first riot-related conspiracy charges to be slapped against a group of Three Percenters, described by the Anti-Defamation League as a militia movement that supports the idea of a small number of dedicated “patriots” protecting Americans from government tyranny.
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Hostetter, a 56-year-old former police chief in La Habra, California, became a yoga instructor after he retired from law enforcement and then took up the cause of anti-lockdown protests through an organization he founded, the American Phoenix Project.
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