Man jailed for Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally arrested in connection with Jan. 6

An ex-Marine who spent time in jail for participating in the far-right white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally has been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Tyler Bradley Dykes was arrested Monday after pleading guilty earlier this year to carrying a flaming tiki torch at the 2017 rally with the intent to intimidate and serving several months in prison, according to Virginia court records.

Photo and video evidence showed Dykes wearing a gray puffer jacket, a gray gaitor and a tan Adidas baseball hat on Jan. 6; the rioter was referred to by online sleuths as “#graygoose” before being identified, according to an FBI affidavit.

The FBI was informed of Dykes’s possible involvement in December 2021 after an anonymous tipster told the agency Dykes said he “went into the capital with a mask on with the other rioters and started beating up police officers” and was “there for ‘fun’ and wanting to make a statement,” the affidavit says. The tipster also said Dykes was still in the military at the time, according to the affidavit.

The Unite the Right rally — organized as a protest of the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — occurred in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 11-12, 2017. It ended with a protester intentionally driving into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one of them. Swaths of white nationalists and conspiracists attended, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dykes could face charges in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, including entering a restricted building or grounds and obstructing, impeding or interfering with law enforcement performing their duties. A federal judge on Monday ordered him temporarily detained and set a detention hearing for Wednesday.