JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

When I saw The New York Times Sunday edition and the lead story, under the headline “90 seconds of Rage on the Capitol Steps,” I almost passed on the story.

I’ve read a lot about the Jan. 6 insurrection and have seen the clips repeatedly on CNN and elsewhere, and I had seen just about as much of the story as I cared to read. But there was something that told me I needed to read this story.

I guess it was the microcosmic nature of it — an afternoon of rage boiled down into a 90-second distillation of craziness and mob mentality. So, I waded in. It took a long time to read it. It started on the front and took up four pages inside, including text and photos.

The most striking thing about the story was that it presented the central figure, a 52-year-old, small-town Kentuckian in almost a tragic and vulnerable light. The story graphically chronicles how the the central figure, Clayton Ray Mullins, and six other men — none of whom apparently knew each other — happened to converge on the same area on the west side of the Capital building and how they proceeded to assault three Metropolitan Police Department officers.

One of the seven assailants kicked at an officer then wrestled another officer officer, Blake Miller, pulling him by his helmet and and dragging him to the ground face first. Another assailant beat Miller with the bottom end of a flag pole, while the red, white and blue colors of the U.S. flag on the other end of the pole jerked to and fro.

Mullins, the story’s central figure, pulled on the leg of Officer Andrew Wayte, engaging in a tug of war with officers who were trying to pull Wayte away. In the wild skirmish, Mullins also pushed on Officer Miller’s helmet, apparently trying to prevent other people from helping Miller get back up to the spot he had been pulled down from.

The story includes some fantastic descriptions of the events, including this…

“The rioters kept coming, a rag-tag army in mismatched colors: the orange knit caps of the Proud boys, the green camouflage jackets of men girding to fight antifa, the red-white-and-blue shirts and caps and flags espousing allegiance to Mr. Trump. Some walked with a jaw-jutting air; others ran, as if storming a beachfront.”

Clayton Mullins had come with his wife and his sister for the “Save America March,” but as events unfolded he got caught up in the raucous cauldron that the previous paragraph describes. Now, he was in no way an innocent bystander because he, his wife and his sister voluntarily chose to accompany the thousands of marchers from the Ellipse just south of the White House to the Capitol. But, from all appearances, he didn’t come looking for trouble.

As The Times story relates, Mullins, 52, grew up in a town of 800 in western Kentucky. He stayed in Kentucky and owns a salvage business “that operates from a lot cluttered with rusted heavy equipment” in a larger city western Kentucky city named Mayfield. (Coincidentally, my grandfather, J.W. Fitzpatrick, had a wholesale tobacco business that frequently took him to Mayfield.)

Mullins did not seem to be infected with the hate and vitriol that inspired many of the Jan. 6 rioters. As The Times describes him Mullins has no social media presence and took up texting only recently. In addition, he apparently wasn’t poisoned by Fox News, preferring to watch reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Gunsmoke.” He doesn’t drink, smoke or curse and, perhaps most interesting, he is the unofficial treasurer, handyman and caretaker of a little church, Little Obdion Baptist Church, in his hometown of Wingo, KY. A former pastor described Mullins as “the burden-carrier of that church.”

And yet, on the afternoon of Jan. 6, Mullins allowed himself to get caught up in the contagion of the riot. As The Times succinctly put it, “(H)e left his wife and sister behind and joined the trespassing throng.”

For the story, he gave an interview to a Times reporter in Little Obdion Baptist Church. Obviously filled with regret, Mullins broke down during the interview and cried. “We never should have come here,” he told the reporter, referring to D.C.

That, however, was eight or nine months after the fateful day. After returning to Kentucky following the riot, he didn’t turn himself in. It wasn’t terribly difficult for authorities to find him, though, because video and still photographs had documented his presence and activities that day.

One day in late February, after pulling out of his salvage yard and onto a Kentucky highway, law enforcement officers pulled over his Nissan Frontier and arrested him on. He is now charged with three felonies, including assaulting an officer, and five misdemeanors. He is in home detention in Benton, KY, and potentially faces a long prison term.

…In a way, it’s a heartbreaking story: Good guy from small town gets swallowed up in an uprising he didn’t know was going to happen.

Of course, there’s the other side of the story, the most important side: We’re all responsible for our own decisions, including those made amid chaotic and unraveling situations. Especially those made amid chaotic and unraveling decisions.

It’s laudable that Mullins cried while being interviewed. But what was going through his mind when he made the conscious decision to leave his wife and sister behind and join the mob that showed us what what modern-day American brainwashing looks like?