Restaurant owner's Capitol riot arrest rattles hometown [View all]

Before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, most people in Pauline Bauer’s rural Pennsylvania hometown knew her for the deep-dish pizza and ice cream she sells at her restaurant.


KANE, Pa. (AP) — A crank caller ordered an “insurrection pizza” from Pauline Bauer’s restaurant. A profane piece of hate mail addressed her as a domestic terrorist. She even became a punchline for Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show on CBS.

A swift backlash greeted Capitol riot suspects like Bauer when they returned to their homes across the U.S. after joining the mob that stormed past police barricades, smashed windows and disrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. Relatives, friends or co-workers reported scores of them to the FBI. Some lost jobs. Others lost their freedom, jailed awaiting trials.

In Bauer's hometown in rural Pennsylvania, her arrest and that of a longtime friend have rekindled partisan bickering, more often on social media than on street corners, some residents say. As Bauer and William Blauser Jr. fight the charges in court, many in the town of Kane have struggled to comprehend how two of their neighbors could be among the hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election that day.

“I think it was totally outrageous, it was illegal and I think it was treasonous,” said Joe Lanich, who operates a letterpress print shop with his wife called The Laughing Owl Press Co. in Kane’s uptown business district. He said the town is populated by proud residents who work hard to improve Kane and “don’t want to see one person paint us in a bad light."

Read more: https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/restaurant-owners-capitol-riot-arrest-rattles-hometown/article_9e3c3ed1-708b-5d97-869a-8cd1c2674b96.html