A Tale of Six People: Using the TRAP-18 to Analyze the U.S. Capitol Insurrection Participants

The events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, shocked the nation and the world. The symbol of U.S. democracy—the Capitol—was invaded by individuals attempting to prevent the certification of an election and the transition of power from one party to another. The still ongoing investigation following this event has identified nearly a thousand individuals involved in this incident, which some refer to as a riot, an insurrection, or a terrorist event. This chapter uses a structured professional judgement tool, the Terrorism Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18; Meloy JR, Gill P. J Threat Assess Manag 3(1): 37–52, 2016), to examine six of the Capitol riot participants indicted for their actions—three for assaulting law enforcement and three for trespassing or other crimes. Using only open source information, this chapter seeks to answer one question: Could the TRAP-18 have predicted these six individuals’ involvement in this incident? This chapter will posit that tools like the TRAP-18 can help us better understand the participating individuals and identifying what precipitating actions matched those seen by terrorists.