A political brawl at the Capitol with weapons – Times Union

ALBANY An undercover State Police investigator was nearby, watching as supporters of President Donald J. Trump began gathering in East Capitol Park on the morning of Jan. 6.

Many in the small group, which would swell in size over the next few hours to about 35 people, were holding flags and wearing Trump paraphernalia. They were there as part of a coordinated "Stop the Steal" rally timed to coincide with the massive gathering in Washington, D.C., that would subsequently turn violent as thousands of protesters forced their way into the U.S. Capitol leaving five people dead.

The protest in Albany would also turn violent, though it paled in comparison to the siege in Washington. It wasn't the first time in recent months that a demonstration in Albany had turned ugly two otherwise peaceful protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd last spring devolved into clashes with police, property destruction and episodes of looting.

But the melee that unfolded as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was giving a coronavirus briefing in a room overlooking the park was something different: a brawl between individuals who are increasingly likely to recognize each other, and show up armed with weapons.

Interviews with multiple law enforcement officials, and a review of court and police records, indicate that at least some of the violence is linked to people who are familiar to police in the Capital Region.

"These are people that are showing up at ... different rallies, in different bubbles but they are monitoring each other" on social media platforms, said a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation of the Capitol incident. "If youre going to the Capitol to rally, why would you be arming yourself with a knife? Youre supposed to be arming yourself with ideas, and the Capitol the theater of ideas has become the theater of war."

'I knew who he was'

The undercover investigator, who is assigned to a Counter Terrorism Intelligence Unit, arrived in the East Capitol Park that morning at about 10 a.m. and reported to Edward Baskerville, a State Police senior investigator overseeing Capitol security, that she recognized three of the counter-protesters who were present.

As the crowd of Trump supporters grew over next 90 minutes, the undercover investigator, who was circling the park on foot, also noted that two or three men, "possibly members of the Proud Boys, were present," according to an affidavit she later filed documenting what unfolded.

The protesters were gathered at the base of the Capitol steps around a bronze equestrian statue of Gen. Philip Sheridan. People in the crowd known by the undercover investigator also were familiar with one another.

In addition to members of the Proud Boys, which the FBI has described as a right-wing extremist group, there was at least one self-described member of Antifa, an unstructured web of anti-fascist groups and individuals that have been described by the FBI as violent anarchists.

A 35-year-old Rotterdam man, who told police he has been a founding member of the Proud Boys' Troy chapter for about three years, was sitting on a bench watching as some of the counter-protesters and Trump supporters argued. He told police that some of the Trump supporters and counter-protesters came close to scuffling as they argued, but it was initially broken up.

Minutes later, over his left shoulder, he observed 37-year-old Alexander S. Contompasis of Albany, crouched on the frozen grass, clutching a cup of coffee and wearing a hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses.

"The man with the aviator glasses said that he knew who I was and I knew who he was," the Rotterdam man told police later in a statement. "I said that I did know him. I recognized him but I don't remember where from. I don't remember ever having a confrontation with him in (the) past."

Contompasis, according to his Facebook posts and his brother, Samson, who is a local artist, has also attended protests outside of New York, including the infamous August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and Trump's inauguration earlier that year in Washington, D.C.

Contompasis has described himself as a security person for Black Lives Matter events and, on his Facebook page, embraces Antifa. He also has posted articles reporting Proud Boys being stabbed at events in the nation's Capitol, adding an emoji of a knife to some of those posts.

Samson Contompasis contends his brother, Alexander, was acting in self-defense when he allegedly stabbed two supporters of President Donald J. Trump during a protest at the state Capitol on Jan. 6. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Alexander S. Contompasis

"Ten years ago if you told me I was going to be part of an underground Anarchist network of masked avengers called Antifa, work with Skinheads to fight white supremacists, (and) have the honor of providing security for events organized by the Black Liberation Movement ... I would have absolutely no idea what the (expletive) you were talking about," Contompasis wrote in a Facebook post on Dec. 2.

Knife, Taser, batons

According to police, Contompasis was armed with a knife in East Capitol Park.

Security video shows the melee began when a Trump supporter appeared to throw a punch at Brandon J. Brown, a 21-year-old Schenectady man who police said was cursing at the pro-Trump protesters. Brown and Contompasis had been sitting together about 35 minutes before the violence erupted.

During the ensuing fight that broke out between Trump supporters several of them Proud Boys and the counter-protesters, police allege Contompasis pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed two men, including the 35-year-old Rotterdam man. The Times Union is not identifying that man because he could not be reached for comment, he has not been charged with a crime and he told police that a counter-protester, after he was stabbed, threatened to find and harm him.

The second man who was stabbed, a 40-year-old military member who returned from overseas duty recently, suffered an eviscerated bowel and underwent emergency surgery at Albany Medical Center Hospital. He was hospitalized for more than five days. His stabbing, however, took place outside the view of a security video that was released last weekend by the Albany County district attorney's office.

"Im hoping to get additional videos," said Melissa Carpinello, an attorney for Contompasis who said her client was acting in self-defense. "Im hoping to see all of the videos, and hopefully that (stabbing) is on camera."

Although police have not confirmed it, witnesses including the undercover investigator said that someone discharged a Taser during the fight.

"Iheard a sound that is known to me as a Taser discharging and ... someone shouting, 'He has a knife,'" the investigator wrote in her affidavit.

In addition, at least two counter-protesters were armed with collapsible batons called Asps and one of them, 28-year-old Nicholas Waunsch of Troy, allegedly swung his at Trump supporters during the melee, according to police. Waunsch was charged with misdemeanor counts of weapons possession and menacing.

The second man armed with a baton, according to police, was 33-year-old Alexis Figuereo, who returned to the Capitol last week to take part in a follow-up protest about what he alleged was police abuse during his arrest. He claims a trooper put a knee on his neck after knocking him to the ground when he tried to walk through what was then a taped-off crime scene.

Law enforcement officials who reviewed video footage of that arrest, which happened after the fight, said it showed a trooper appearing to kneel on Figuereo's torso as he allegedly resisted arrest, but not on his neck. They said the trooper cautioned Figuereo several times not to walk through the crime scene but he ignored his order.

Figuereo, who characterized the Trump supporters as "Nazis" and the State Police as their sympathizers, accused police of aligning themselves with the Trump supporters because only one of them an Albany man who allegedly struck a woman in the face with a flag pole was charged with harassment, a violation. Figuereo was charged with resisting arrest, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal trespass, assault and disorderly conduct, all misdemeanors.

"When the Proud Boys started to be attacked back, that is when it started to be a problem, Figuereo said. "(Police) were there to protect the Proud Boys, apparently not to protect us."

'I'm not going to stand back'

Samson Contompasis, 41, who also has served as a volunteer "security guard" at protest events, said his brother acted in self-defense and had been knocked to the ground by a Trump supporter before stabbing the man in self-defense.

"The reason that my brother is off-camera is that when he went to separate the fight, one of the Proud Boys came up and cleared him. Hes on the ground and this guy gets on top of him and repeatedly starts punching him in the face and head," Contompasis said. "When the video pans up, my brother gets up off of the ground and he sees two people attacking one of his friends, who is on the ground. One of the guys ... is kicking the Black man in the head."

Contompasis said his brother has attended dozens of protests on the East Coast as a journalist. He said his brother had a "public access show" called "Albany Banana Corps" and also uses Facebook and YouTube to post videos of protests he captures on video. There are also social media posts, many from right-wing supporters, of Alexander Contompasis engaged in violence at the protests.

In a 2017 interview with CNN, Alexander Contompasis said he and other Antifa members videotape footage of "Nazis" at demonstrations to expose them to the public, their friends and co-workers.

"The only other option is allowing them to attack the community," he told CNN, explaining why he and other Antifa members attend pro-Trump and white supremacist demonstrations. "I'm not going to stand back and do that. If people aren't going to stand up to them, then they're going to grow. The same thing happened pre-World War II and the next thing you know, 6 million dead Jews. Is it worth it? Yeah, to prevent another Holocaust, absolutely. ... Is there another Civil War coming if we don't stop it?"

His brother, Samson, disputed that his brother and others went to the Albany pro-Trump rally to counter-protest.

"It wasnt a counter-protest. The two Black men that were there, they were just sitting on the bench," he said. "They werent yelling; they werent doing anything. This white nationalist group goes up on the statue and starts flashing white power symbols at them."

That account is contradicted by the undercover police investigator, who was reporting in real time to a senior investigator that the counter-protesters were antagonizing the Trump supporters.

Contompasis said it was just a coincidence that his brother went to the Capitol protest carrying a knife.

"We're artists. ... He didn't bring a weapon to fight with; it was just incidental he had it on him," he said. "Alex didnt come with a weapon, he just happened to have his knife on him."

When a Proud Boy allegedly used a Taser on one of the Black men, "that's when the rules of combat change," Contompasis said. "Then you know that there's six enemy combatants there not one of them has a weapon? You have to assume that all of them have a weapon."

The 35-year-old Proud Boy member told the State Police that Alexander Contompasis had pulled the knife out of his pocket before any punches were thrown as Brown, who was also arrested, and a Trump supporter squared off.

"I saw a pinkish-red colored handle and realized that he was reaching for a knife," the man told police. "I grabbed his left arm and said, 'Don't stab anybody.' He said: 'I will stab someone.'"

Samson Contompasis also criticized the police response, contending "they should have been there once (the pro-Trump protesters) started surrounding a Black man."

State Police were monitoring the protest through Capitol surveillance cameras and had uniformed troopers staged inside the building. They ran in and helped break up the protest just after two Albany police officers, who had been nearby, ran into the park first.

Alexander Contompasis quickly left the scene and went to his vehicle, which was parked nearby. He was pulled over by State Police a few blocks away and troopers recovered a knife, with blood on it, in the vehicle.

When asked why his brother would go to a protest, like the one at the Capitol, rather than leaving it to police to handle any unruliness, Samson Contompasis said they are Jewish and Greek and have been fighting anti-Semitism and racism their entire lives.

They view their presence as security at these events as a form of civic duty.

"This is the same day that our nations Capitol was sacked by the exact same group," Samson Contompasis said. "They dont just wave their flags. These people are there to incite violence, theyre there to incite terror on Black communities around this country. ... By doing security, by being there, were preventing outside forces from intervening on the message that is meant to be told."

Insurrection at the US Capitol

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A political brawl at the Capitol with weapons - Times Union