Former Topeka City Council candidate arrested in connection with U.S. Capitol riot
A Topeka man who ran for city council there and is listed as a Kansas State University doctoral student was arrested Friday for his alleged involvement in the U.S. Capitol riot.
William A. Pope, 35, was taken into custody Friday morning without incident and was booked into the Shawnee County Jail.
Pope told local journalists in January that he reported himself to the FBI. He said he was at the Capitol to exercise his First Amendment rights and did nothing violent.
So far, federal prosecutors have charged more than 200 people from 41 states in connection with the riot, and authorities continue to make arrests.
Pope’s brother, Michael Pope, of Sandpoint, Idaho, also was arrested on Friday by FBI special agents within the Salt Lake City Division, the FBI said in a release.
They both face the following federal charges: obstruction or impeding any official proceeding; civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a capitol building; impeding passage through the capitol grounds of buildings; parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building.
William Pope ran for Topeka City Council in 2019 and lost. During the campaign, he filled out a questionnaire for The Kansas Leadership Center Journal.
“I’m fed up with poor city management,” he said, “and I’m running for city council because the north side of town needs a representative with resolve and tenacity to force the difficult conversations that need to be had.”
He said Topeka could be a great place to live “if we get the basics right. Prosperity has eluded us because we haven’t prioritized the essentials in city government.”
Pope has been listed as a student with Kansas State University’s Leadership Communication Doctoral Program and a graduate teaching assistant.
“Kansas State University condemns the Jan. 6 insurrection that occurred in the United States Capitol,” Michelle Geering, a K-State spokeswoman, said in an email. “A graduate assistant at K-State has been charged with federal crimes in conjunction with this event. The university is conducting an internal review and will not comment on future personnel actions.”
He is the second person with K-State connections known to have been at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Jaden McNeil, a recent student whose offensive tweets about George Floyd last year propelled the university into the national spotlight, was outside the Capitol with America First podcaster Nick Fuentes, whose supporters include white nationalists and far-right provocateurs. McNeil founded a K-State chapter last year called America First Students.
McNeil retweeted a video the day of the event that showed him standing next to Fuentes in the throng outside the Capitol pumping his fist in the air and chanting, “America First!”
McNeil was a junior in political science at K-State last year. A university spokeswoman said that he was not enrolled in classes for the spring semester.
The Star’s Bryan Lowry contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 3:14 PM.
