Capitol Rioter Turned in by Bumble Match Pleads Guilty

UPDATE Dec 20, 2023 5:10 PM CST

A Capitol rioter who was turned in by a Bumble match has pleaded guilty to a felony charge. Texas man Andrew Taake, 32, pleaded guilty to "assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon," the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC, said. Prosecutors said he was holding a whip-like weapon when he attacked officers with chemical spray. The woman who reported him said she changed her political beliefs to conservative on the dating site in the days after the Jan. 6 attack, NBC News reports. She said "it didn't take a lot of arm twisting" to get rioters to brag about their actions, giving her information that she passed to the FBI. Taake is scheduled to be sentenced in March. Court records show that at the time of the attack, he was on bond on a felony charge of soliciting a minor online.

Jul 24, 2021 10:30 AM CDT

Another man has been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol after being turned in by a Bumble match. The dating app tracks locations, and showed Andrew Taake of Houston in Alexandria, Virginia, just across the river from the Capitol. Screenshots of his chat with his unnamed match, included in a criminal complaint, also show him bragging about having been pepper sprayed, complete with a picture. He told his match he had been "peacefully standing there," but photos posted on social media shows him using a metal whip to attack police, per the Washington Post.

Body cam video from DC's Metropolitan Police shows Taake pushing out of a crowd and pepper spraying police and using his whip, too. And he was picked up by security cameras inside the building. Once the FBI were pretty sure they knew who he was, they showed his picture to a FedEx driver who had moments before delivered a package to him. The driver identified Taake. Cellphone records show Taake in or near the Capitol, too. Taake faces federal charges, including assaulting officers, and disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building, Houston Public Media reports. (More Capitol riot stories.)