The Louisiana Army veteran who was convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi man must be kept behind bars ahead of his trial for assaulting police officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, federal prosecutors have said in an emergency filing.
Prosecutors say Edward Richmond Jr. should have been taken into custody after his arrest on Monday and are asking a federal magistrate in Washington, D.C., to override a local magistrate’s order denying pretrial detention.
In an emergency motion filed Wednesday, government lawyers say that Richmond is both a flight risk and a danger to those around him.
“Richmond has a previous manslaughter conviction for shooting a handcuffed man in the head; on January 6, he brought a metal baton to the Capitol and used to commit brutal assaults on officers,” the filing says. “When the FBI arrested him — an arrest that was complicated by Richmond’s efforts to live an untraceable life ‘off the grid’ — they discovered an assault rifle in his closet. Richmond poses both a danger and a risk of nonappearance, and the Court should detain him pending trial.”