A Dating App Match Has Helped the FBI Catch Yet Another Suspected Capitol Rioter

Yet another Bumble match has led to a suspected Capitol rioter being arrested and charged by the FBI.

This time it was Andrew Quentin Taake, a 32-year-old man based in Texas, who told the woman who messaged him he had been at the Capitol “from the very beginning.” Taake said he had been “peacefully standing there” on Jan. 6 when police officers pepper-sprayed him. He then sent his match a photo of himself he said had been taken after he’d been sprayed, writing, “Safe to say, I was the very first person to be sprayed that day … all while just standing there.” Taake also said he had entered the Capitol for about 30 minutes.

According to court documents, the conversation took place on the app while Taake was still in D.C., in the few days after the insurrection. After the woman messaging Taake alerted the FBI, agents confirmed that Taake had taken a flight from Houston to Baltimore on Jan. 5, and then returned to Houston on the 8th. Using screenshots of Taake’s Bumble photos, agents were also able to identify him in photos from the riots, many of which showed him “using what appears to be a metal whip and pepper spray to attack law enforcement officers,” the documents say. Taake has been charged with felony assault on a police officer, civil disorder, and obstruction of congressional proceeding, CNN reports, along with several other federal crimes.

It may not be merely coincidental that two alleged Capitol rioters have now been caught on the dating app: After the Jan. 6 attacks, Bumble reactivated a feature on its platform that allows users to filter matches based on their political preferences. Though Bumble didn’t say whether the decision—and the timing of it—had anything to do with the riots, users noted that it was a useful tool for finding Trump supporters who might be all too happy to brag about their crimes.

In April, a man named Robert Chapman told his Bumble match “I did storm the Capitol” and boasted that he “made it all the way to Statuary Hall” before being reported to the FBI. The woman with whom Chapman was messaging had the courtesy to first inform him: “We are not a match.” No ghosting here!