WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 rioter who dragged former D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone into the group on the steps of the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal jail on Thursday.
Albuquerque Head, a 43-year-old from Tennessee, was sentenced to 90 months in federal jail, a bit shy of the 96 months that prosecutors had requested, however nonetheless one of many longest sentences so far within the Capitol riot instances. Head will get credit score for the roughly 18 months he is spent locked up already.
Fanone urged Choose Amy Berman Jackson to condemn Head to the utmost, saying that Head had minimize his profession in legislation enforcement quick. Fanone suffered a coronary heart assault and traumatic mind damage within the Jan. 6 assault, and ended up resigning from the Metropolitan Police Division.
“Present him the identical mercy that he confirmed me on Jan. 6 … which is none,” Fanone mentioned.
Head dragged Fanone into the mob on Jan. 6 whereas yelling “I acquired one!” Earlier than that, he used a police defend to push in opposition to a line of law enforcement officials within the western-facing tunnel of the U.S. Capitol, the place a number of the most violent acts of the riot passed off. He pleaded responsible to a felony cost of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers.
Choose Amy Berman Jackson referred to as Head’s actions “a number of the darkest acts dedicated on one in all our nation’s darkest days.” She identified all of the alternatives Head needed to take away himself from the battle being fought in opposition to police, however as a substitute re-armed with a police defend and went again to the entrance line.
Jackson described former Officer Fanone as Head’s “prey” and his “trophy.” She additionally described Fanone as “defending America” through the riot.
Jackson additionally identified the irony that Fanone was attacked beneath a Blue Lives Matter flag. The individuals attacking Fanone “didn’t assume Blue Lives mattered a lot in any respect” when officers have been standing of their means, she mentioned.
“Mr. Head did not simply get caught up in one thing, this case is just not about getting carried away,” Jackson mentioned. Fanone, she mentioned, “was defending America. That is who Officer Fanone was, that is what Officer Fanone was doing.”
Jackson mentioned it was necessary to ship a message to those that would search to overturn elections sooner or later.
“Folks want to know that they can not do that, or something like this, once more. They cannot attempt to drive their will on the American individuals as soon as the American individuals have already spoken on the poll field. That is the alternative of democracy, it is tyranny. And the risk to democracy, the darkish shadow of tyranny, sadly, has not gone away,” Jackson mentioned.
“There are people who find themselves nonetheless disseminating the lie that the election was stolen, they’re doing it at this time,” she continued. “And the people who find themselves stoking that anger for their very own egocentric functions, they want to consider the havoc they’ve wreaked, the lives they’ve ruined, the hurt to their supporters’ households even, and the risk to this nation’s basis.”
Fanone, who has testified earlier than the Jan. 6 committee and lately wrote a e-book concerning the riot, mentioned that the notoriety he is discovered since he was almost killed on Jan. 6 hasn’t been value it, and mentioned he is devastated that he misplaced his profession in legislation enforcement.
“I’d commerce all of this consideration to return to policing,” he mentioned. “However I can’t try this.”
