A man in Texas told someone he matched with on Bumble that he attended the US Capitol riot where the FBI says he attacked police with a metal whip. They turned him in.
By Charles Davis
The criminal complaint says someone who matched with him on the Bumble dating app turned him in.
He is at least the second accused rioter to be arrested due in part to online dating.
A man in Texas has been arrested after he boasted to a match on an online dating app about attending the January 6 insurrection from "the very beginning."
According to a July 21 criminal complaint, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a tip on January 9 from a person who had chatted on Bumble with Andrew Quentin Taake. In an exchange, Taake described being pepper-sprayed: "I was the very first person to be sprayed that day, all while just standing there," he claimed.
Federal authorities accuse him of doing a lot more than that. In the complaint, an FBI agent accuses him assaulting police and storming the US Capitol building.
Indeed, images on social media show Taake "using what appears to be a metal whip and pepper spray to attack law enforcement officers," the complaint states.
Police body-camera footage, reviewed by the FBI, also shows Taake using the pepper spray on officers outside the US Capitol. About 45 minutes later, Taake then emerged from the crowd of rioters and is seen "striking officers with a weapon that appears to be a whip," according to the criminal complaint.
Security footage recorded near the US Senate then shows Taake parading outside the chamber "openly holding the whip-like weapon," which the FBI said was likely a metal self-defense tool available online.
A device similar to that shown in the complaint, currently available on Amazon, is sold as an automotive safety device intended to break windows in the event of an accident. The description says it is "not a product that is designed to be used as a blunt force striking weapon."
Taake is identified in the charging document as the co-owner of Hi-Flow Houston, a home cleaning and pressure washing service. Federal agents obtained a search warrant for the phone number listed on the company's Facebook page, matching it to the cell phone Taake used to book his flight to Washington, DC. The records show it connected to cell phone sites that would be utilized from inside the Capitol building.
Public posts on Taake's Facebook page, reviewed by Insider, show an apparent interest in right-wing politics. In one post, he responded to a news item about a caravan of Central American migrants, alleging terrorist infiltration, by describing it as "an outright invasion." In another, he says Carter Page, a one-time advisor to the former President Donald Trump who met with Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, "should be well on his way to suing the pants off the DNC" over allegations of collusion.
Taake is charged with attempting to obstruct the work of law enforcement; entering a restricted building that contained the vice president; and causing a disturbance during a session of Congress.
It is at least the second time a man who was accused of taking part in the riot was reported by a Bumble match. In April, Robert Chapman of New York was arrested after telling a woman on the dating app, "I did storm the Capitol."
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