Philly QAnon detective in D.C. last Jan. 6 still on limited duty awaiting disciplinary hearing

Detective Jennifer Gugger, an apparent QAnon adherent, had worked in the Recruit Background Investigations Unit. Part of her job was to evaluate the social media activity of potential recruits.

The Philadelphia FOP has said Detective Jennifer Gugger "exercised her First Amendments rights to attend an event" on Jan. 6, 2021, but did not do anything wrong. She is, however, facing potential departmental violations.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer

by William Bender

Published Jan. 7, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

This time last year, Jennifer Gugger, a longtime Philadelphia police detective responsible for screening potential recruits, had returned from Washington, where she’d been posting on Facebook about having beers with “fellow patriots.” Hashtag: #StoptheSteal.

Hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, fueled by the lie that Donald Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, Gugger tweeted at then-Vice President Mike Pence that he’d sold his “soul to the devil.”

Two days later, when Pence lamented the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick — who died after trying to ward off the mob — Gugger responded with apparent references to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

“You’re a traitor and a cabal operative and pedophile!” Gugger tweeted at Pence, calling him a “swap [sic] creature” who “fooled us all.”

Gugger’s presence in Washington on Jan. 6 and her increasingly unhinged social-media activity triggered an Internal Affairs investigation the week after the insurrection. She was reassigned and her gun was taken away.

A year later, however, Gugger remains a police officer on restricted duty, police say. She awaits a disciplinary hearing on possible departmental violations that have not been publicly disclosed.

Sgt. Eric Gripp, a police spokesperson, said while at least one Police Department employee was in Washington on the day of the attack, an Internal Affairs probe found no evidence of any employees “taking part in the insurrection or having entered any unauthorized areas.”

Prior to being placed on restricted duty, Gugger, 52, a member of the force for 33 years, had worked in the Recruit/Background Investigations Unit, whose staff aims to “exclude candidates who have demonstrated character traits that are inconsistent with the highest values of the profession,” according to the department’s website. Part of her job was to evaluate the social media activity of police recruits, which made her own posts particularly alarming.

In October 2020, for instance, Gugger changed her Facebook cover to a photo of the letter “Q” with lightning striking the Washington Monument above the words “The Storm has arrived.” That is a reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory in which a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles control the Democratic Party.

Gugger on Thursday responded to a text with only “no comment.”

Several of Gugger’s Facebook and Twitter posts have since been removed, or made private. On LinkedIn, her profile picture is a photo of her and former Philadelphia Police Inspector Joseph Bologna.

Bologna is awaiting trial for allegedly assaulting a protester with a baton in 2020. Last October, he was sued in federal court for allegedly attacking another protester. Both incidents were at least partially captured on video.

The Philadelphia FOP has strongly defended the actions of both Gugger and Bologna.