More than a year before federal authorities took Brian J. Cole Jr. into custody and accused him of planting pipe bombs outside political headquarters in Washington, D.C., a Virginia police officer was writing him a citation for a minor traffic crash.
Scripps News obtained body camera footage from that April 2024 incident. It offers one of the first glimpses of Cole on camera, showing him talking to police after his vehicle collided with a pick-up truck driven by an 84-year-old man.
The video indicated no one was injured in the minor crash, but Cole received a citation for following too close behind the other vehicle, according to a court record related to the case.
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“I was looking for a place that I could, you know, move on to the next lane, and then, just one small lapse in – small, small lapse – in focus, and I just crashed behind him,” Cole told the officer who responded to the scene. He also said he had been involved in a crash in his past.
Earlier this month, Cole, 30, was arrested and charged with “transporting and planting two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on January 5, 2021 at the headquarters of both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.,” according to the Department of Justice.
Authorities have not revealed a possible motive. Cole is due to appear in court later this month.
