Ex-NYPD cop Sara Carpenter convicted in Jan. 6 riot

Sara Carpenter plays the tambourine at the US Capitol on January 6th.

A former New York police officer who was seen – and heard – shaking a tambourine as she made her way through the US Capitol on Jan. 6 has been convicted of a series of felonies and misdemeanors related to the riot.

Sara Carpenter, 53, was seen on surveillance footage in the Capitol rotunda around 2:45 p.m., about a half hour after Donald Trump supporters first breached the Capitol after violently overpowering police, the Justice Department said in a press release. The mob incursion into the building forced Congress to halt its endorsement of Joe Biden’s election victory and either evacuate the building or take shelter for several harrowing hours.

“Carpenter confronted a line of police officers in the Capitol, shaking her tambourine and yelling, ‘I’m a … animal,'” the Justice Department press release said, adding that she resisted law enforcement officers guarding a hallway in the Senate chamber.

According to investigators, Carpenter voluntarily provided the tambourine — as well as other items she had with her at the Capitol that day — to federal agents, along with a video she took inside.

Tambourine by Sara Carpenter (via FBI Court Records).

She also voluntarily provided the FBI with a video she took in the Capitol. The affidavit described the video as “rotated as if the videographer were spinning in a circle with the camera rolling.”

While inside the Capitol, Carpenter was also seen slapping the arms of officers who tried to stop her from proceeding further into the building. According to prosecutors, she stayed in the building for 34 minutes “despite being asked to leave and having endured the effects of chemical irritants.”

After exiting the building, Carpenter still insisted that Congress respond to the pro-Trump mob.