A lone ‘cowboy’ and a small handful of supporters march in support of Jan. 6 defendant

By Stephanie Keith

The odd specter of a cowboy riding under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Sunset Park today may have struck many as anachronistic, if not downright surreal. But the gaucho in question was attempting to highlight one person’s very current plight just around the corner, at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

An event that had been advertised as “Cowboys for Trump,” promising protesters riding horses in the shadow of the Gowanus Expressway, yielded a turnout of fewer than 10 supporters and one single lone ranger for Trump. Couy Griffin, waving an American flag atop his steed, wowed construction workers (one of whom wanted to take a picture with the horse and rider saying, “you don’t see this every day!”), annoyed cops who don’t have cowboys in their playbook, and galvanized the scant few who turned out in support.

BQE photo op (Photo by Stephanie Keith)

What issue, you may ask, brought forth this small but noteworthy display of MAGA-ness in normally true-blue Brooklyn? Solitary confinement. January 6 rioter and Sullivan County native Jake Lang, 28, is currently being held at the jail. Lang, arrested shortly after he and other Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in January 2021, is among a small number of defendants — out of more than 1,400 charged with participating — who have been kept in jail while awaiting trial. And Lang, according to his father Ned, who organized today’s protest, is being held in solitary confinement.

Jake Lang, has been held primarily in the Washington D.C. jail, but was placed in the Brooklyn prison around March 1. He faces charges for allegedly battling police for more than two hours in the midst of the pro-Trump mob, including beating officers with a baseball bat. His father Ned says that his son has been in solitary confinement since April 9. Jake’s trial is set for September.

“It’s nothing less than punishment, what he’s going through right now, that’s why I’m here,” observed Griffin, the horseman, who had traveled all the way from New Mexico for the rally.

Ned Lang protests the conditions under which his son is being held (Photo by Stephanie Keith)

Griffin would know a thing or two about incarceration, since he says he was also arrested and served time for his participation in the January 6 transgression. A Republican, Griffin served from 2019 to 2022 as a county commissioner for District 2 of Otero County, New Mexico. In September 2022, he became the first public official in more than a century to be barred from public office based on the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, due to his participation in riot. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail, a $3,000 fine, 60 days of community service and supervised release for a duration of one year.

“I know what solitary confinement is like,” Griffin, perched atop his horse, continued. “I spent three weeks in solitary confinement, so I know the mental torture of it and I’m terrified for others going through it.” (Griffin was reportedly held in solitary confinement at least in part because he refused to take a Covid test.)

The flags outnumbered the protestors Wednesday (Photo by Stephanie Keith)

After touring the industrial block where the jail is located, Griffin took his horse for a spin underneath the elevated portion of the BQE. Stopping occasionally for well-wishers and shocked pedestrians (who probably didn’t have a flag-waving horseback cowboy on their bingo card today), Griffin returned to the jail where he joined the defendant’s father. Ned Lang, holding a washboard sign saying “Love of a father for a son” bemoaned his son’s predicament.

Holding his son in solitary confinement, he said, is “against the Mandela [rules], state law and federal law.”