An Ohio man who attempted to breach the FBI’s field office in Cincinnati on Thursday has been identified as Ricky Shiffer, according to three federal law enforcement sources.
A six-hour-long standoff between law enforcement and the 42-year-old man ended after officers responding to the incident exchanged fire with him. The gunman later died of his injuries.
Public records for Shiffer show he lived in state capital Columbus, about 100 miles from Cincinnati, the Daily Beast reported.
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According to the New York Times, the suspect was seen in a video posted to Facebook on Jan. 5, 2021, at a pro-Trump rally in DC the night before the Capitol was overrun. Two law enforcement sources close to the matter said that investigators were trying to determine if Shiffer was linked to extremist groups involved in the riot.
A Twitter account in Shiffer’s name follows two people—one of which is Donald Trump Jr. In a reply to a tweet in May, Shiffer said that he was at the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Daily Beast reported.
“I was there. We watched as your goons did that,” he wrote. “When I told the ones trying to break back in that Trump tweeted be peaceful, one of them said, ‘F— Trump.’”
Another of his tweet read: “Oh, the packing. The packing could be here. Save ammunition, get in touch with the Proud Boys and learn how they did it in the Revolutionary War, because submitting to tyranny while lawfully protesting was never the American way. LEXINGTON.”
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However, soon after the identity of the gunman was revealed, the Twitter account believed to be linked to him was suspended.
An “armed subject attempted to breach the Visitor Screening Facility” at the office at about 9 a.m, FBI Cincinnati said in a statement Thursday. “After an alarm and a response by FBI special agents, the subject fled north onto Interstate 71,” the statement said.