Jan. 6 protester: “We’ve lost our country”

A Florida man whose son and daughter were charged in connection with the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol said he doesn’t regret going to Washington, D.C., that day.
“I don’t know if you know about Christianity, but if you have an unclear conscience, God won’t let you sleep. He will not let you sleep. And when I got home, I told everybody, I said, ‘I don’t have an unclear conscience,'” Ben Pollock said in an interview at his home in Lakeland, east of Tampa.
Jonathan Pollock, and his sister, Olivia, were both charged with crimes after the Jan. 6 episode. See indictment and criminal complaint. Their father said the U.S. government has unfairly maligned him and his family.

They’re trying to make us out to be like these white supremacists or these, uh, is just the furthest thing from the truth.

Agents raided his home on June 30 and arrested Olivia Pollock. Jonathan Pollock wasn’t found that day and remains at large. Excerpts of my interview with his father are below:

And I sit there and I was in handcuffs or six hours while they searched the house and tore the house all apart.
Freedom is when you can, you know, you, you, people had grit that made this country and they did it. They took off across this country with a plow or a mule or, you know, and just a few things and a few items. And they, they dug into the earth and planted and, and cut trees down and made them houses.

Wasn’t nobody there helping them. And they, they raised their families to fear God. And to understand that there’s a law that oversees everything and it comes God. And that’s how I grew up. That’s the type of people I grew up around.
Something went, something definitely is not being told. And you’re hearing one side of a story that, that was that the other side is not been told.

They’re not telling the other side what really happened. They’re holding back, FBI’s holding back evidence and stealing evidence of, of the others.

They had shifted this narrative of what happened so quickly. They had their brainwashing tactics going on that they were just a bunch of radicals that attack the Capitol. And they were, nobody should ever hit a park police, which they shouldn’t. But if the park police are attacking people and doing thing, you got the right to defend yourself. That’s part of what’s not being said.

You felt like you were being hunted.

And so I’d ask everybody in the, uh, in the vehicles, everybody that had went up there with us, I said, does anybody have an unclear conscience? And I don’t know if you know about Christianity, but if you have an unclear conscience, God won’t let you sleep. He will not let you sleep. And when I got home, I told everybody, I said, I, I don’t, I don’t have an unclear conscience.

I love Donald Trump. I’d put my body in front of him if somebody who was going to hurt him. And we would have, if they’d have been somebody in that crowd that would have tried to hurt him, we would, uh, jumped on him. Everybody there would have jumped on him and protected him. And he knew that, you know, and that’s why he trusted the people.

They were coming after both Jonny and Olivia, and I, I thought the whole family, because they had been arresting people for just being up there.

They had a stack on Jonny that big and then on Olivia. Yeah. Got a stack of it. Evidence on her, you know, uh, handpicked pictures of every time she defended herself.

They’d been watching the house for months and, and watching our every move, trying to link us with a militia.

I had been warned, you know, that they were, there would go one to try to get Patriots into an altercation where they were fighting against the government.

I had an AR 10 with a loaded clip. And it sat in right beside my door. Right by the front door. And so if I, I really feel like if I’d have went to the door with that gun, they would have shot me right away because they wanted it. Not necessarily the ones that were here, but the higher ups definitely wanted an altercation with a Patriot. And I use that term in a high respect cause they, they try to make a Patriot, sounded like he’s a white supremacist or he’s just a radical, but a Patriot is one that loves this country and respects the founding fathers, what they had given this.

There was a group, uh, out of our church in a different, different citizens in this county that, uh, know we got up there. And, uh, and now they’re trying to use that against us. They’re trying to use it like we were a militia or something, you know, gang of thugs that just come up there to overthrow the government, which was the furthest thing from the truth. We were a bunch of citizens that you are election had been stolen and nobody wanted to look at the evidence. And so that’s what, what’s what drove us up there.

People backed out all along the way because they were saying, well, Antifa is going to be there. Black Lives Matter is going to be there and they’re going to be beating people up and, and threatening people and hurting people. And so when you have eight children, and they’re fit and keep themselves fit and run and lift weights and so they were, they were dressed up ready to defend everybody there. In fact, I was even ready. We had duct tape in our backpack deal to tape up any Antifa and take, you know, anybody that was trying to cause harm to any older person or any monument or anything.

The park police were working with Antifa and they bust in the windows and doing all the shenanigans and everything an hour before this. What I’m talking about happened at two o’clock when the president finished speaking and they funneled down and they were bringing them in the park, police were bringing them in. And when they got the number they wanted inside the Capitol, they blocked off those fences. And then they just started beating the hell out of everybody, knocking them backwards and pushing them back into that other hundreds of thousands of people, and then throw in grenade, these ammonia grenades into the crowd. And that is just, and it was the type of stuff that just takes your breath away.

I have one son, they, uh, Jonathan Daniel, they, they were there after him. He’s on the run right now from the FBI. And so they, but he was helping a, an older man, uh, that was, that was overtaken by that ammonia gas. And while he’s been over there, they, they try to split his head open. And so he helps a guy get out and he just, he sees all the others say, and let’s go to the top. And he said, at that time, he said, well, why not? You know, if our government is going to treat us like that, it sounds like a good idea just to make a statement that we can, this is our house. And, uh, I was never, I grew up going into the Capitol and it’s a beautiful place. I mean, it’s absolutely gorgeous. And then, but absolutely none of, like I say, none of the, uh, the supporters that were there were there to tear anything up.

Now, once they, the park police attacked him, then, then you know, you got fight or flight. Well, they chose to fight and they wanted to fight. They gave it to him and pushed him back. And, uh, and, and there are a lot of people saying, well, if, uh, Trump’s supporters didn’t fight well, they did, but it was because they were attacked. And, uh, and there was, there was a lot of the BLM stuff in the front and a lot of the shenanigans that went on into front and they were working with it and definitely the FBI orchestrated the, the whole thing.

So, and then the SWAT team moves in through the house.

Next thing I know they race over here. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Throw them grenades. They sound like, uh, they sound like a, uh, a dump truck door slamming shut.

Our neighbors thought we were all dead. This is how traumatic the situation was. Our neighbor was crawling through their house thinking there was gunfire going on and they thought we were dead. And those little babies come, she’d come walking out with them. And, and she said, she didn’t see the laser, but I know they had them guns on her when they first opened the door. When I saw them coming around, they come around where we were just out to the front where I was at. And I started hollering at him. I said, you, bunch of cowards. I said, you really trained hard to attack those little babies. I said, you, bunch of Nazis. I said, this is, I said, this is a proud day for America. And I was just so disheartened, you know, of what would become, you know, that we, uh, you know, going to treat American citizens. That’s exactly what our forefathers had talked about when they were telling them about giving quarter over to the soldiers, the British soldiers. And they would come in and stay at some Americans how home, where they could be a spy or they could, they could just betray, uh, the American cause. And, uh, and then, and then plus American people were feed them. And, and so it’s, it’s just, it was just a really sad and traumatic day, you know, for the whole family.

They’re still looking for Jonny. He wasn’t here during the raid.

And then I hear Tampa is building a, uh, an agency just for the park police to come in and harass the American people. I don’t know why other than our governor, why isn’t everybody an outrage over this? This is insanity. I mean, that’s exactly what Nazi Germany or, or Stalin or all of them did. They have a federal police agency. And, and then it’s just so against what our forefathers had given us, but you know what, uh, our sheriff is stepped in a crap storm because he was he’s acting like he wasn’t with him, but yet he allowed it and, and the deputies were, some of the deputies were in on it. And so they, um, they’re getting all kinds of flack for cooperating with them going after Jonny and trying to make him look like he’s armed and dangerous, and he’s just a dangerous maniac on the run.

And like I say, they don’t go after bank robbers. They got murderers coming over the border. They got rapists coming over the border. They got perverts coming over the border, but yet they’re after an American citizen that his most worst crime is a speeding ticket and it’s nuts.

That’s what their narrative is. He was a maniac attacking the Capitol. I said why would a citizen of the United States that’s never been in trouble all of the sudden think it’s a smart idea to go up against the federal government?

To meet him is to love him. I mean, he’s just a, uh, a lovable boy. He just, he loves this country and he, uh, and, and people recognize that. And so they go, they’re standing beside him, which they should, and they should stand beside every family that’s being attacked. I didn’t want to make this about my family in particular because it’s happening to so many others.

And the House and Senate betrayed us and, and signed off on fraudulent level elections. And we don’t have a voice and we’re being persecuted if you speak out against it. That’s what it’s all about. It’s all about a failed election and, and speaking out against it. And that’s what this, that’s why I got my house all torn apart and burn marks all through.

We don’t want to see a civil war. That would be the most horrible thing you can see in America is a civil war because it, you know, nobody’s going to win it.

You know, when I heard my, my daughter comes screaming in, and of course I’d already woke up with the explosions, and she comes screaming in ‘they’re here, they’re here.’ And, uh, and we had been hearing about all the other raids, you know. So we had an idea that they were, you know, you know, going to come. I feel like, uh, you know, they, like I say, they were wanting, they were wanting, uh, uh, a Patriot to stand up against them. And they thought they had the right house. Hey, cause we own the gun store and we have a lot of guns. And like I said, I had a, uh, AR 10 that was just sitting right by the door loaded. And, um, and uh, we do a lot of hog hunting.

And the hogs eat up the, just rut up the hay fields. So we’re always shooting hogs. And so the is like a hunting camp. And so the children were raised around guns. And so, and with the gun store would just always, always, uh, that’s part of the, uh, just how the children were grown, had grown up in, uh, they respect, the Second Amendment. And, uh, they know how to shoot and they, and they, uh, they love this country and they would defend it with their lives.

So when I went to the door, why, as I was saying before, I knew in my heart, they want it when I opened that door and all those lasers. And I said, oh my goodness. I said, they really wanted me to come out with that gun. And, uh, and I was just so hurt in my heart.

You know, how our country could get to that place, where they would want an American citizen that loves this country and would defend it with their life.

And so that’s why we were there on the sixth to try to get somebody, ‘Hey, wake up. We’ve lost our country. We don’t have a vote anymore. We don’t have, we’re losing our Second Amendment right.’

When I went to the door, they had all the lasers, everything, screaming. And I was telling them, come in. I said, this is not necessary. I said, if you want to come in, just knock on the door and come in. I said, I said, I’m inviting you in. And they said, ‘get down on the ground, get out.’ I was trying to get my wife and children a little time. So I stood at the door. I said, well, if they’re going to shoot me, they’re going to shoot an unarmed man. And they know it. And so I stood at the door and was telling them, come on in. This is crazy.

And so they, they come up and, you know, and grabbed me and pulled me off. They took all our computers out of the house, all our phones. But as they took me out, they, uh, they got everybody out and then started in throwing their grenades inside the house.

Well, they were, they were desperately trying to link us to, uh, right-wing radicals that we were overthrowing the government, or that we were plotting against the, uh, the president or doing, you know, uh, I don’t, I, from what I got from them, that is definitely what they were trying to find and trying to find links. Olivia had picked up a paper of one of the Three Percenters, where they were, when we were at the Capitol, they were sending out flyers, trying to get recruits and things for the Three Percenters. And then, you know, like the group of Oath Keepers, I said, what if we had been Oath Keepers, we believed in the constitution. That would have been horrible. We could have really done a lot of damage to the country if we would go against the constitution or promote the constitution. What a horrible concept, you know, those people have got to be stopped and they’re going to stop them. That’s why I’m saying they’re coming after us first, but then they’re also coming after everybody that’s, uh, that believes in the constitution. And what a horrible crime that is.