The mom of the man nicknamed the “zip-tie guy” says she and her son did not have violent intentions when they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Lisa Eisenhart’s son, Eric Munchel, earned the moniker after being pictured carrying flex-cuffs in the Senate chamber during the Wednesday riot. “We saw the zip cuffs on top of an already opened cabinet in the hallway inside [the] Capitol building,” Eisenhart told the Tennessean. “We picked them up to prevent them falling into hands of bad actors.” Munchel is currently in custody in Nashville. He faces charges of unlawful entry on restricted property and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Another man who was arrested after being pictured with zip ties in the Capitol on Wednesday, Larry Brock, had a similar excuse, telling The New Yorker, “I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.”
