Meet the Violent Jan. 6 Criminals Trump Let Back on the Streets
Donald Trump declared in his inaugural address that his second presidency would restore “fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.” Hours later, the president issued a blanket pardon and widespread clemency to 1,500 individuals who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — including offenders convicted of violent crimes.
Over the course of their campaign and presidential transition, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, danced around committing to pardoning all Jan. 6 defendants — particularly the large swath convicted of assaulting police and law enforcement officers, planned violence against lawmakers, and maiming the Capitol in their frenzy to usurp the 2020 election.
“If you beat up a cop, of course, you deserve to go to prison. If you violated the law, you should suffer the consequences,” Vance said in May.
The president disagrees. If you beat up a cop, if you violated the law in the name of Donald J. Trump, you can receive a blank slate and escape the consequences — no matter how egregious your actions.
Here are some of the many violent Jan. 6 criminals Trump is releasing back into America’s streets.
The rioter who beat cops with a crutch (and a lot of other stuff)
David Dempsey was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the melee between law enforcement officers and rioters. His was one of the longest sentences given to a Jan. 6 defendant.
According to prosecutors, Dempsey “viciously assaulted and injured police officers defending the Lower West Terrace Tunnel with a variety of implements here fashioned as weapons,” for over an hour the day of the attack.
“Dempsey climbed atop his fellow rioters, using them like human scaffolding, thrusting himself to the front. Once he reached the mouth of the tunnel, Dempsey began a prolonged attack, fighting with his hands, feet, flag poles, crutches, pepper spray, broken pieces of furniture, and anything else he could get his hands on, as weapons against the police. Dempsey’s violence reached such extremes that, at one point, he attacked a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him,” prosecutors said.
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Dempsey’s lengthy criminal record — which included a 2019 incident in which he pepper sprayed anti-Trump protesters in Santa Monica, California — contributed to the length of his sentence.
The rioter who tasered a police officer in the neck
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone recalls being dragged from a line of police officers into the heart of the mob, where rioters beat him and attempted to take his service weapon. Fanone was shocked multiple times in the neck by a taser wielded by Daniel Joseph “DJ” Rodriguez, and suffered a heart attack at some point during the day, a concussion, traumatic brain injury, and was later diagnosed with PTSD.
Rodriguez was sentenced to over 12 years in prison for his assault against Fanone. In an interview with federal officers after his arrest, Rodriguez said that he believed the conspiracy theories espoused by Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election. “Trump called us. Trump called us to D.C.,” he said. “If he’s the commander in chief and the leader of our country, and he’s calling for help – I thought he was calling for help.”
The rioter who crushed a cop with his own riot shield
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden described Patrick McCaughey III as the “poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling about” Jan. 6, and accused him of perpetrating “some of the most egregious crimes that were committed that day,”
McCaughey was sentenced to 90 months in prison for — along with two co-defendants — assaulting police in their bid to force their way into the Capitol. As McCaughey and other attackers attempted to force their way through a line of cops with riot shields, he used a stolen shield to push MPD Officer Daniel Hodges against a metal door frame while another assailant hit him in the face with a stolen baton.
The rioter who beat a cop with a flag pole
In July of last year, Peter Francis Stager, a truck driver from Arkansas, was sentenced to four years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon — in this case a flagpole.
“Stager himself wielded a flagpole and used it to strike at a vulnerable officer, who, lying face down in a mob of rioters, had no means of defending himself.” prosecutors wrote of the assault that took place near the Lower West tunnel entrance to the Capitol. A site where the fighting between police and the mob of rioters reached a fever pitch.
“Every single one of those Capitol law enforcement officers, death is the remedy. That is the only remedy they get,” Stager declared on film the day of the riot.
The rioters who pepper sprayed Officer Brian Sicknick, who later died
On Jan. 6, Capitol Police Officer Bian Sicknick was pepper sprayed twice while defending the Capitol from the insurrectionist mob. At around 10 p.m. that night, Sicknick collapsed and was transported to a D.C. hospital, where he died the next day after suffering two strokes.
Sicknick’s death was attributed to natural causes but Julian Khater and George Tanios, the two men accused of assaulting the officer with a chemical irritant, both received prison time for their role in the attack. Khater was sentenced to more than 6 years after pleading guilty, while Tanios received a 10-month sentence.
Sicknick’s family has steadfastly maintained that their son would still be alive if not for his experience on Jan. 6. Trump “has blood on his hands,” Sicknick’s mother, Gladys, told ABC News in 2023. “I don’t care. People say, ‘Oh, but Brian died from strokes.’ Because of what he was going through, I’m sure, because he was very intense and I’m sure that helped.”