'Are you crazy?': Republican police officer grapples with Jan. 6 during 'Sedition Panda' trial

WASHINGTON — Prince George’s County Cpl. Scott Ainsworth has worked riots before. He did so in the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and during unrest after University of Maryland athletic events — both celebratory ones, as well as riots when students were "upset about losing to Duke."

But testifying on Monday in the trial of Jesse James Rumson, a Jan. 6 defendant accused of assaulting Ainsworth outside the Capitol after he stormed the building while wearing a panda costume head, Ainsworth said he'd never seen anything like the Capitol attack, when rioters who believed former President Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election directly attacked officers in police lines.

Ainsworth testified about his service in the military dating back to 1988, his riot training in Korea and his prior civil disturbance experience, when rioters might throw objects from afar but would never think of engaging directly with a wall of police shields.

“This is the first time any of us as riot officers have had a crowd do this to us,” Ainsworth said.

It took him “a couple of months to come to grips” with what happened on Jan. 6, Ainsworth testified during a bench trial for Rumson before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee.

“I’m a Republican, these are my fellow Republicans,” Ainsworth testified, joking that he's from Oklahoma where you’re "born a Republican." But he said some of the fellow Republicans in his life now want nothing to do with him because of his service on Jan. 6.

“Are you crazy?” Ainsworth recalled thinking about those fellow Republicans who supported what happened that day. “This was stupid, it was not necessary.”

Rumson was arrested in February 2023. At one point, his trial was set to