“QAnon shaman” gets headgear and spear back

Jacob Chansley, who became known as the “QAnon Shaman” during the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, will get his fur hat with horns and his spear back. “Since the authorities have not demonstrated that they still need these items as evidence and have not requested their seizure, the court will grant Mr. Chansley’s request,” said a district judge in the US capital Washington in a ruling issued on Monday.

Chansley, 36, had sued for the return of the items seized by authorities during his arrest in January 2021. According to the judge’s ruling, the items to be returned to him include the “horned coyote tail headgear” and a six-foot-long stick with a metal spearhead.

Horned QAnon man becomes the face of violence

Chansley stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, together with other supporters of the ousted President Donald Trump. Pictures of Chansley with a bare torso covered in tattoos, a painted face, a fur hat with buffalo horns and a spear with a US flag went around the world. The self-proclaimed “shaman” and supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory thus became one of the best-known Capitol attackers – and a face of the violence of January 6.

Chansley was sentenced to almost three and a half years in prison in November 2021 for obstructing an official procedure. However, he was released early in the spring of 2023. His lawyer had argued that he had been suffering from mental health problems for a long time. In November 2023, Chansley announced that he wanted to run for the Libertarian Party in the US Congressional election.