Sandy MaloneVienna, VA – The wife of U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) filed a criminal complaint against one of the people who organized a protest outside their Northern Virginia home in January.
The incident occurred on the evening of Jan. 4 while Erin Hawley was home alone with their infant newborn daughter in Vienna and the senator was in Missouri with the couple’s two little boys, ABC News reported.
The senator quickly took to Twitter and condemned “leftwing violence” at his home by “Antifa scumbags” who had “screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door.”
“Tonight while I was in Missouri, Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel,” Hawley tweeted. “They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door. Let me be clear: My family & I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence.”
And didn’t have the guts to do it in daylight, but only under cover of darkness so you could hide. You’re scum. And we won’t be intimidated
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 5, 2021
A video posted to social media showed members of the antifa group ShutDownDC parked at a nearby shopping center.
The group marched from the shopping center and through the neighborhood to the Hawleys’ suburban home.
The video showed the small group assembled in front of the senator’s house, yelling and holding signs.
Erin Hawley opened the door at one point, the video showed, while she held an infant in her arms.
The senator’s wife calmly asked the protesters to leave, ABC News reported.
“We’ve got neighbors and a baby, thank you,” Erin Hawley told the assembled group.
She later told police in the complaint that she was fearful and so she closed and locked the door for the remainder of the time the protesters were there, ABC News reported.
After Erin Hawley went back inside, several protesters approached the front door and began pounding and yelling.
“[T]he doorbell rang, and from downstairs, I could hear loud noises at the door: knocking, stomping, shouting, or some combination,” she wrote in her statement to police. “I went upstairs to see what was happening… The protestors were screaming with bullhorns and shouting ‘Come out, come out!’ I was frightened.”
Then the video showed that about 20 protesters stood just feet away from the Hawley’s front door, screaming angrily and chanting “shame on you” and “stand up, fight back” through a bullhorn.
Vienna police responded to the Hawley home and informed the protesters that it was “actually illegal” to protest in front of a residence, ABC News reported.
The police department said that use of bullhorns was also prohibited by city ordinances.
The group continued to protest for about 10 minutes after police arrived, ABC News reported.
In the complaint, Erin Hawley said the incident had left her “fearful” and that they had to hire private security because protesters had “threatened to return in the early mornings or during the night.”
She filed the complaint in Fairfax County and named activist Patrick Young as one of the people at her home that night, ABC News reported.
The senator’s wife said she identified Young, an organizer of ShutDownDC, through news accounts of the protest in front of her home.
Young had given multiple interviews to news outlets about the protest insisting that it had been a “not threatening” event, ABC News reported.
Based on Erin Hawley’s statement, the magistrate found “probable cause” to issue an arrest warrant for the organizer of the protest.
ShutDownDC denied knowledge of the warrant for Young’s arrest, FOX News reported.
“We are not aware of any summons issued related to our candle light vigil at Senator Hawley’s house,” ShutDownDC said in a statement about the summons for Young.
“Police on the scene did not believe a crime was committed,” Young told ABC News in a statement. “That was confirmed by the Vienna Police department in media reports days later. If a summons has been issued, it is outrageous that a rich and powerful person — a United States Senator — can go to their magistrate to get a summons to harass a normal person.”
The guy who is trying to have people thrown in jail for having a candle light vigil is complaining about being silenced. https://t.co/R4lYwngML0
— ShutDownDC (@ShutDown_DC) February 6, 2021
ShutDownDC has continued to insist that the event in front of the Hawleys’ home was a candlelight vigil and not a protest, ABC News reported.
Holly Matkin
