Kat Schuster | Patch Staff
LAKE ELSINORE, CA — Lake Elsinore resident Derek Kinnison was welcomed home with a church service in his honor on Sunday, just one week after President Donald Trump pardoned him for storming the U.S. Capitol while armed and wearing tactical gear on January 6, 2021.
Kinnison, 43, was dubbed an exemplary Christian on the stage of 412 Church Temecula Valley to the roaring applause of the church’s congregants as Pastor Tim Thompson embraced his family, the Press-Enterprise reported.
“The Bible says that we weep with those who weep,” the pastor told the church, according to the newspaper. “Certainly nine months ago when he was going into prison, we all wept with this family as they wept. But today, we rejoice with them as they rejoice.”
Kinnison, his wife Amie and his 16-year-old daughter Faye are all members of the church.
When was sentenced in Washington D.C., he says he told the prosecutors: “I’m going to be a prisoner for Christ. I’m not a prisoner of the (U.S. Department of Justice).”
As he took the stage on Sunday, Kinnison shared that he held daily devotional services while behind bars.
He read this verse from Exodus on Jan. 20 the day he was pardoned: “Let my people go.”
After the service, the church held an afterparty for the family, where bracelets reading “Free the J6ers” were given out and people signed framed images of the American flag with “Welcome home” messages.
“God calls men to be protectors,” he said.
But Kinnison hasn’t received a warm welcome from all, explaining that he has received hate mail
“Someone who made plans to bring weapons to the Capitol in order to do whatever it was that they were planning on doing there … the church I was raised in would never have done anything like that,” Murrieta resident Jenn Reeves told the newspaper. “To me, that is very much against what Christianity truly should be.”
Four Southwest Riverside County men who were convicted in 2021’s Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol — including Kinnison — were pardoned by Trump on Jan. 20.
Trump granted clemency to 1,500 people convicted for their involvement in the 2021 breach, including a significant number of defendants who attacked law enforcement officers. Among those exonerated were also members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Kinnison, Erik Scott Warner, 48, of Menifee, Felipe Antonio Martinez, 50, of Lake Elsinore, and Ronald Mele, 54, of Temecula were all convicted of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding — both felony offenses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The four Riverside County men were members of the Three Percenter militia in Southern California and had conspired together for a road trip, which they called “Cannonball Run 2021.” Kinnison now says he is no longer a Three Percenter.
Kinnison’s attorney, Nicolai Cocis, told The Press-Enterprise that the men brought ballistic vests, bear spray, gas masks, handguns and shotguns for defense against Antifa. But Kinnison called these items “defensive tools.”
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation,” Trump wrote in his mass exoneration document.
On Jan. 6, 2021, the four Riverside County men first attended the Ellipse “Stop the Steal” rally in which Trump addressed the crowd. Afterward, they headed toward the Capitol, according to prosecutors.
As the men approached the Capitol, Kinnison declared, “This is the storm of the Capitol.”
