WTF what kind of fool gets pardoned then goes out and drives drunk with a weapon? Why can’t folks just UBER? Duhh. Great story.
Bruceville-Eddy vineyard owner convicted in U.S Capitol insurrection back in jail
Bruceville-Eddy vineyard owner convicted in U.S Capitol insurrection back in jail
Published: Jul. 13, 2025 at 2:47 PM CDT|Updated: 59 minutes ago
Bruceville-Eddy (KWTX) – A Central Texas man convicted for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was arrested Saturday night on suspicion of drunken driving and weapons charges.
Christopher Ray Grider, 43, of Eddy, was released from the McLennan County Jail about noon Sunday after posting bonds totaling $2,000 after his arrest on driving while intoxicated and unlawfully carrying a weapon charges, both Class B misdemeanors.
Grider, a Bruceville-Eddy vineyard owner who claims the government misinterpreted his intentions after he entered the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to just less than seven years in prison on May 23, 2023, for his role in the riot at the Capitol in which more than 100 police officers were injured and which resulted in more than $2.8 million in damages.
Grider was released from a federal prison in Bastrop Jan. 20 after President Donald Trump, who called the rioters “patriots” and “hostages,” pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of all of the 1,500 or more people charged in the insurrection.
According to arrest documents, a Hewitt police officer pulled Grider over about 11 p.m. Saturday after the officer reported he clocked Grider driving 55 mph in a 45 mph zone on Sun Valley Boulevard.
“As soon as I made eye contact with Grider, I observed his eyes were red and glossy,” an arrest affidavit alleges.
Grider told the officer he had a Taurus .38-caliber revolver tucked in the driver’s side door, which the officer confiscated before giving Grider standard field sobriety tests.
The officer noted in the affidavit he “observed numerous clues” indicating Grider was intoxicated and took him to jail on the misdemeanor DWI and unlawfully carrying a weapon charges.
Under Texas law, residents can generally carry a handgun legally without a license, but there are restrictions and other requirements. One of those restrictions makes it an offense for a person with a license to carry a handgun to do so while the person is intoxicated or committing another crime.
According to evidence presented by prosecutors in Grider’s federal case, Grider can be seen on Capitol surveillance video wearing a red “Make America Great cap” with a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag tied around his shoulders. He also was seen on video handing a hard hat to a man, who used it to break a window in a door to the Speaker’s Lobby.
Grider was standing a few feet away when a Capitol police officer shot and killed rioter Ashli Babbitt as she tried to climb through the window of the lobby door. Prosecutors also charged that Grider tried to shut off the electricity at the Capitol, pressing buttons on an electric utility box while yelling, “Turn the power off.”
Grider pleaded guilty to entering a restricted area and unlawfully parading at the Capitol, while he went to trial on seven other charges, including civil disorder and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., convicted him on all counts and sentenced him to six years and 11 months in prison and ordered him to pay $5,055 in restitution and an $812 fine.
The judge noted after the trial that Grider “was a leader, not a follower,” during the insurrection and said that videos of the riot clearly demonstrated “how Mr. Grider put himself at the center of this conflict, steps away from some of the most violent, lawless and reprehensible acts that occurred in the Capitol on that day.”
The judge asked: “How close can a person be to unquestionably violent and completely unacceptable lynch-mob-like acts of others, and still claim to be a nondangerous, truly innocent bystander?”
Grider’s lawyer, Brent Mayr of Houston, has said that Grider “truly regrets his actions on Jan. 6 and apologizes to his family, his community and, most importantly, his country.”
Class B misdemeanors are punishable by up to 180 days in jail and fines up to $2,000.
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