Capitol Siege Aftermath
Jan. 6 rioter who dragged D.C. officer Michael Fanone into hostile crowd sentenced to 7.5 years in prison
Albuquerque Head offered to help D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone to safety as rioters besieged the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance on Jan. 6, 2021, but instead he grabbed Fanone by the neck and dragged him out into the crowd, yelling "Hey! I got one," Fanone's body-camera recorded. The mob beat Fanone and repeatedly shocked him with his own taser, triggering a heart attack and causing a traumatic brain injury that forced Fanone into retirement.
Head, 43, pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer in May, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman sentenced him to 90 months — 7 1/2 years — in prison on Thursday. Prosecutors and Fanone had asked that Head get eight years while Head's lawyers had requested a five-year sentence. The only other Jan. 6 defendant given a longer sentence so far is former New York City police officer Thomas Webster, who got 10 years for assaulting police. Webster did not take a plea deal and was convicted by a jury.
"These were some of the darkest acts committed on one of our nation's darkest days," Jackson told Head after watching video from Fanone's body camera. "He was your prey. He was your trophy."
"Nearly 900 people have been charged for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and more than 400 have pleaded or been found guilty, primarily to misdemeanor offenses," Politico reports. "But the number of defendants facing sentences for more serious crimes, like assaulting police officers or seeking to disrupt Congress' session to count electoral votes and affirm Joe Biden's presidency, has begun to climb as those slower and more complicated cases near their conclusions."