Shelly Stallings

Back in 2020,Shelly and Peter’s life had been changed forever by the November presidential election. Like millions of other supporters of then-President Trump,the pair weredeeply disturbed by the developments and irregularities of the election. A passion to defend the integrity of their country’s democracymoved the couple to make plans fora tripto Washington, D.C. to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Shelly got a few days off work at her job operating a forklift at a local warehouse. She and Peter gassed up their car and drove across country to join the President’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6^th at the Capitol Mall.

Shelly was among the estimatedtwo hundred thousand-plus Americans who listened to the President’s speech at theMall. She and Peter cheered asTrump proclaimed, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Shelly and her husband marched proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue, spirits high. By the time they arrived at Capitol Hill, earlier crowds ofprotestors had already removedseveral lines of barriers and were gathered beforea police line ofbarricades surrounding the Capitol building itself. Like most of the thousands of protestors that day, they saw no sign that “the People’s House” was closed to the public that day.

At the Capitol steps, Shelly was shocked to witness police throwing tear gas and other “less-lethal” grenades into the crowd, beating them back with batons, and dangerously firing rubber bullets at citizens from a high vantage point. All of this was against police policy for lawful crowd control.

Shelly and Petersoon joined the hundreds of protestors jammed into the Lower West Terrace, where an archway andshort, narrow tunnel leadinto the Capitol Building.

     At 4:20 p.m., as protestors funneled into the tunnel, officers released irritant spray into it,choking those inside.           Shelly was among the stampede of protesters whoretreated out of the tunnel. She gasped for fresh air as some         around her passed out. The officers then began firing pepper balls into the panicked crush of citizens – again,            egregiously in violation of police policy.

   Shelly was among the many in the terrace area whose horror turned to fury at what they witnessed next.

Rosanne Boyland, one of the dozens who became trapped under piles of bodies, was rescued by fellow protestors, pulled to safety outside the tunnel’s archway. People shouted in vain for the officers to help the injured Ms. Boyland. Instead, Metro PD Officer Lila Morris stepped out of the tunnel with a baton and violently struck the prostrate womanaround the head and chest three times, ignoring the shouts of citizens to stop.

(Rosanne Boyland would tragically die the next day after being taken to a hospital by first responders from inside the Capitol. She was one of four protestors whose deathshave been directly connected to the events of January 6th. Officer Morris was exonerated, received commendations from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and was flown to the Super Bowl as a guest of honor.)

Enraged by these acts of police brutality, dozens of protestors surged forward and violently engaged the police forces around the terrace.

Many protestors would later describe it as “a war zone.”

In the fray, Shellyand Peter were each handed a cannister ofirritant spray by someone in the crowd. Both sprayed it in the direction of a line of police officersbearing riotshields and wearing helmets with face shields on the Lower West Terrace. The two never entered the Capitol building.

After the riots had settled and protestors dispersed, Shelly and Peterreturnedto their apartment in Pennsylvania.

As Shelly resumed her normal life in Uniontown, she had no idea that the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, using provisions of the Patriot Act, hadlabelledher husband “a domestic terrorist” and trackeddown their location.

Less than month after the events of January 6th, the pre-dawnFBI raid of Shelly and Peter’sapartment was executed.

Shellshocked at having her husband torn away from her, Shelly movedbackto her hometown in Kentucky to live near family. From afar, she supported Peter as he was held without bond for over a year in the infamous “D.C. Gulag,” a jail known for its dedicated wing housing J6ers and its inhumane living conditions. She was unaware that at some point during this year of waiting, FBI agents were tracking down video footage that showed her spraying the Capitol Police alongside her husband.

On February 16, 2022, Shelly was arrested and transported to Washington, D.C., where she was charged with 5 felonies: assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon; interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, along with 2related misdemeanors. 

Shelly was freed on a $25,000 unsecured bond. Back in Kentucky, Shelly was diagnosed with breast cancer.It was crushing for her to begin treatment alonewith her husband in jail.

At the end of 2022, facing a trial by notoriously biased Washington D.C. jurors, she took the advice of her court-appointed attorney and pleaded guilty to all charges.Despite her battle with cancer, she was sentenced to 2 years in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release.

On May 5, 2023, while serving her sentence,Shelly was stunned to hear the news of her husband’s fate. After being found guilty by a D.C. jury, Peter was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. He is now housed alongside murderers who have shorter sentences than his.

Shelly is currently living behind razor wire inside a federal women’s prison in West Virginia, far from her family and friends. She and Peter are now divorced. Shelly’s release date is February 16, 2025.

Please consider sending funds for Shelly’s food and other commissary expenses using her inmate ID # (86525-509)using this link: