Federal prosecutors have charged a Chula Vista resident with illegally breaching the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a case unsealed Tuesday.
Howard Raymond Freelove, 70, was arrested Monday in San Diego County and charged with four misdemeanors relating to disorderly conduct, entering restricted grounds and parading inside a Capitol building. He was released from custody Monday on $5,000 bond.
The FBI said footage from multiple sources showed Howard Freelove in and around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
(Courtesy of FBI via U.S. District Court criminal complaint)
Freelove could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His court-appointed attorney did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Freelove made headlines in late 2021 when Chula Vista police identified him as the man who went on an obscenity-filled tirade inside a Chula Vista coffee shop displaying a Black Lives Matter sign in its front window.
“I’m White, I’m (expletive) White!” Freelove is seen screaming in footage of the Dec. 1, 2021, incident first posted on TikTok. The video showed Freelove slamming his hands on the coffee shop’s open window during a guitar performance and yelling at the people inside, calling them racist. He then walked into the establishment shouting. “Kill me, kill me, man, kill me, I’m White, I’m White!”
Freelove can be seen in the video slamming the door of the coffee shop while leaving. CBS8 reported that Chula Vista police arrested and released Freelove that night and cited him with misdemeanor vandalism for allegedly damaging the door. Court records show that soon thereafter, the coffee shop’s owner sought two restraining orders against Freelove.
Federal court records show Freelove also received a citation in 2017 for alleging yelling and swearing at a nurse and trying to grab the nurse through a window in a triage area at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in La Jolla.
According to court documents unsealed Tuesday, Freelove apparently drove from Chula Vista to Washington, D.C., in the days before Jan. 6. An FBI agent wrote in a statement of facts that Freelove at one point filmed a cellphone video of himself while driving, and part of the footage showed the interior and hood of the vehicle he was driving matched the white 2000 Chevrolet van registered to him.
The FBI used surveillance video, news footage and other videos taken the day of the riot to track Freelove’s alleged movements from a rally near the Washington Monument to the outside of the Capitol. In that footage, like in the cellphone video he filmed while driving, Freeman has a distinctive white beard and wears a red hat that says “Trump 2020” and “Make Liberals Cry Again.”
About 20 minutes after other people first broke into the Rotunda, Freelove allegedly entered the building, according to the criminal complaint. The FBI and prosecutors allege that he wandered around the Rotunda and Statuary Hall while filming on his cellphone for about 20 minutes and then left the Capitol.
The FBI said surveillance footage showed Howard Freelove entering the Rotunda about 20 minutes after rioters smashed through the Capitol’s windows and doors.
(Courtesy of FBI via U.S. District Court criminal complaint)
According to the complaint, the FBI received a tip about Freelove’s potential involvement in storming the Capitol in December 2021 — the same month as the coffee shop incident and around the same time that online sleuths identified him as a possible participant in the Capitol riot.
Federal prosecutors have now charged roughly 1,150 individuals for participating in the Capitol breach. Like the others, Freelove is charged in federal court in Washington, D.C. More than a half-dozen of the defendants are from San Diego, including a San Diego security company founder arrested and charged last month.
