On the morning of January 31, Edward Jacob “Jake” Lang, a Narrowsburg native and January 6 defendant, initiated a hunger strike from inside the D.C. Central Detention Facility, known as the D.C. Jail. Lang has been detained there without a trial date since February 3 of last year.

The hunger strike is the headline on j6truth.org, a website Lang founded and maintains from prison, spending up to two hours daily on posts and maintenance when he has access to his tablet. Some days, Lang posts from “the hole,” a disciplinary cell in the jail basement, and sometimes from his cell block, dubbed the Patriot Pod by the 40-or-so January 6 prisoners held in the medium-security annex.

“It is day 11 of the hunger strike,” Lang posted from “the hole” on February 10. “I woke up Sunday night throwing up stomach acid and chewing my own tongue.  So I took a small bowl of rice and a vitamin shake.”

According to livescience.org, a prisoner in good health is not considered at serious risk until a month or so into a hunger strike, or “when more than 18 percent of body weight is lost.”  After 45 days, “death is a very real risk.”

From the outset, Lang has insisted that January 6 was a peaceful protest in support of Donald Trump’s presidency, gone bad because of police aggression. On January 7, 2021 Lang uploaded the following to Facebook: “I watched a woman die yesterday in front of my eyes. I saved 2 others from being trampled and suffocated by the Capitol Police.” He also reported multiple injuries to himself. (Affidavit, page 7, number 17.)

Phillip Anderson, who was part of the uprising at the Capitol and claims to have been trampled and suffocated because of the police, says Jake Lang saved his life.  Video footage, posted on February 10 to j6truth.org, shows Anderson laid out on the ground and in a separate shot, a person who could be Lang apparently trying to quell the violence.

According to j6truth.org, Lang will end his fast on February 23 or when these demands are met: “1. A thorough Bipartisan Congressional investigation into the Jan 6th Capitol Police brutality and murders of Ashli Babbit and Roseanne Boyland; 2. The immediate release of ALL January 6 detainees with no prior violent criminal history; 3. Equal Treatment Under the Law. Similar lenient wrist slap sentences as 2020 BLM and ANTIFA rioters.”

Weaponizing the body is a bold gesture, desperate and theatrical, an attempt to wrest control of the January 6 narrative, to transform the story from attack on the Capitol to defense against tyranny. Was January 6, 2021 legitimate political discourse or was it an attack on a free and fair election? And who is Jake Lang—patriot or felon?

A hunger strike is a gesture in keeping with Lang’s January 6 Facebook post, which was at once whimsical, self-destructive and serious, time-stamped 8:04 p.m. and titled “Jake Lang is at the White House, Washington, DC”: “I was the leader of liberty today. Arrest me. You are on the wrong side of history.” (Affidavit, page 8, part 17.)

It is also an act of diminishing returns to the body and sometimes to the cause. “I will be starving myself until they start investigating,” Lang told the “Conservative Daily,” a podcast that, as of February 10, had generated 4,403 views. “I’m going to be hunger-striking to bring media attention. I will be injuring my own body to make it known none of us have a criminal history,” a recognition that would presumably lead to Lang’s release.

The “media attention” desired is specified on j6truth.org: not “mainstream” media but “big conservative media hosts and journalists.” National but not liberal, FOX and the big boys, Lang told the “Conservative Daily,” exactly the kind of coverage necessary to transform a relatively obscure prisoner into a symbol of political resistance, a reality-show story arc with serious and lethal consequences, if Jake Lang goes the distance.

At the moment, Lang is exacting about when his fast will end, down to the day and time. “Jake Lang... will not break his fast until his next court appearance on February 23rd at 2:30 p.m.”

That Lang has a penchant for the dramatic is well documented in the 11-count affidavit, reportedly filed by FBI Special Agent Lanard Taylor, name redacted from the record, that led to Lang’s arrest on January 16, 2021, at his Newburgh home. It’s a kaleidoscope of images, captured on January 6 between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., of a dark-haired, bearded Lang, often serious, sometimes stern, occasionally smiling, that were uploaded to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram in the days following the Capitol riot, posted mostly by the subject, with the internet-savvy and self-destructive confidence of a 25-year-old. There is the photo from Instagram@realjakelang of Lang on the Capitol steps, arms spread wide, the American flag flying at a distance over the Capitol Rotunda behind him, a master of ceremonies in “a black jacket with numerous silver zippers,” titled “1776 has commenced.” (Affidavit, page 5, number 13.) There is the photo on “Capital Hill,” posted to Instagram@realjakelang on or about January 7, 2021, of Lang with a carefree smile and freewheelin’ “blue and white patterned shirt,” the Rotunda flag again behind him, only closer. (Affidavit, pages 8-9, number 20). And there is the video—“GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH”—posted on or about January 8, 2021, to Instagram @realjakelang, of Lang in a “green gas mask.” (Affidavit, page 9, number 21.)

Potentially more damning, the video, posted from an unidentified Facebook account, of “an individual consistent in appearance with LANG” at “the front of a crowd outside the lower west terrace door... a dark and red colored baseball bat” in hand, swinging, thrusting, and/or jabbing “the bat at law enforcement officers multiple times” and striking “at least the shields the officers held in front of them.” (Affidavit, page 18, number 24.)

And finally, in a video that must have cinched the warrant for Lang’s arrest, posted by an unnamed Twitter account-holder and streamed on Instagram, but not pictured in the online affidavit, an unidentified female reportedly asked Lang, “What’s next?” And Lang allegedly answered, “Guns... That’s it. One word.” (Affidavit, page 19, number 25.)

On January 6, 2021, from approximately 1 p.m., when Vice President Mike Pence and a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened a typically pro-forma  and peaceful process to certify the vote count of the Electoral College for the 2020 Presidential election, the final step to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and throughout the day, including at around 2 p.m., when thousands of rioters reached the Capitol steps and began smashing doors and windows, and again at 2:13 p.m., when the Capitol was officially breached, until 8 p.m., when the Capitol was secured and proceedings resumed, the “revolution” was televised. And Jake Lang was there.

In the days that followed, the footage was viewed and reviewed by millions of people in Narrowsburg and Newburgh, nationally and abroad, by strangers and enemies, family and friends. Names were named and fingers pointed and faces captured on broadcasts and podcasts, in stills and videos, and preserved in perpetuity on the web and in the 23-page affidavit in support of a warrant for Jake Lang’s arrest.

Patriot? Games?—depends on how you see it.

For more coverage of the Jake Lang case, see the links below:

Narrowsburg native helped storm Capitol Building

FBI arrests area native

Lang to remain detained for now

Capitol stormer pleads not guilty