Father, son charged in Jan. 6 insurrection

WELLINGTON — A second Lorain County man has been named by federal prosecutors and charged with being among the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when he is accused of assaulting five police officers while storming the home of Congress.

Federal authorities claim they have put a name to alleged insurrectionist No. 454: They say he is 41-year-old Michael Mackrell of Peck Wadsworth Road in Wellington Township.

Mackrell is facing felony charges for his actions during the breach of the U.S.

Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced March 10.

“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the presidential election,” federal prosecutors said in a news release.

He is the second member of the Mackrell family so charged: Michael Mackrell’s son, 21-year-old Clifford Mackrell, also is awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Michael Mackrell’s charges include assaulting, resisting or impeding officers; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous

Oberlin Council talks license plate cameras

CARISSA WOYTACH THE CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM

OBERLIN — Oberlin may become the next city to implement license plate cameras in Lorain County.

City Council heard from Laura Holland, senior community affairs manager with Flock Safety, at its meeting March 6, discussing the potential for four cameras at main thoroughfares coming into the city.

Flock provides solarpowered license plate cameras to more than 2,500 cities nationwide, with 100 municipalities in Ohio using the service, Holland said. It takes photos of the license plate and identifiable features of vehicles passing by and stores it for a default of 30 days.

She said if there is an active investigation, local police departments must download their data and store it on a separate server — making it subject to the individual department’s record retention policy. Local ordinances can lengthen or shorten Flock’s retention time, she said, but suggested if Oberlin implements the program to start out with the 30-day time period as a test. The data is made available to local law enforcement and can be shared with other departments, but logs when it is accessed, Holland said. Most often, the data is used when there is an active warrant or stolenvehicle alert associated with a vehicle, she said, as well as Amber Alerts for missing or endangered children and Silver Alerts for missing or endangered senior citizens. weapon; and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon.

It also allows local departments to create “hotlists” for known vehicles associated with crimes, and alerts other law enforcement with Flock systems when that vehicle passes into their city.

He was arrested in Ohio on March 9, authorities said, and has an initial court appearance scheduled in Washington, D.C., today.

Five people died as a result of the Jan. 6 insurrection, including one shot by police. Millions of dollars in damage was done to the Capitol building, and four police officers who were on the scene that day later died by suicide.

The insurrectionists allegedly wanted to stop Congress from counting the Electoral College votes that gave President Joe Biden the win over former President Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential election.

Trump had claimed without evidence that the election was stolen by the Democratic Party. Following the insurrection and after he left office, he was impeached for a second time but acquitted when the U.S. Senate fell 10 votes short of the 67 required to convict him.

The final report of a bipartisan U.S. House of Representatives committee blamed Trump for the insurrection.

Michael Mackrell case

A statement of facts written by an FBI agent and distributed with the news release identified Michael Mackrell in a photo taken from video near the Capitol