At Least 81 Pro-Trump Rioters Are Charged With Assaulting Police on January 6

But Kevin McCarthy acts as if none of it happened.

On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters flooded Washington, D.C., to protest Donald Trump's election loss. Hundreds later battled police and breached the US Capitol.Michael Nigro/Sipa USA/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday threw cold water on plans for a bipartisan commission to investigate the assault on the US Capitol on January 6, announcing he would vote no. But even as McCarthy continued to lead a GOP effort to downplay and whitewash the insurrection, he held an event just last week in Washington, DC, to “Back the Blue,” including honoring fallen Capitol Police officers who died in the aftermath of January 6. In his remarks at the police event, McCarthy made no specific mention of what happened at the Capitol four months ago, including the extensive violence against police at the hands of the pro-Trump mob.

According to a database of January 6 cases assembled and analyzed by Mother Jones, of the more than 450 defendants charged to date, at least 81 people are accused of assaulting police at the Capitol that day. The defendants allegedly used an array of weapons, from flag poles and fire extinguishers to their own fists. Many of the attacks were captured in video footage that circulated widely on social media. CBS News reported that more than 35 of the defendants are accused of using a deadly or dangerous weapon.

US Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick was among the most prominent examples of those attacked, having suffered two strokes and dying the day after after being hit with bear spray on the front lines. He was one of approximately 140 police officers—from both the US Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police—who were hurt during the assault, suffering injuries ranging from the partial loss of a finger to concussions and broken ribs. “Many more” suffered injuries “they did not even bother to report,” Robert J. Contee III, the acting chief of police for the MPD, said in a January 26 statement submitted to a House briefing, noting that two Capitol Police officers took their own lives in the weeks after the attack.

Since then, Republicans have continued with a brazen campaign to gloss over the violence; at a House hearing last week, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde suggested that the majority of Trump supporters who illegally entered the Capitol were part of what could be considered “a normal tourist visit.”

“They were there with a purpose to hurt people,” Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn said on CNN after listening to comments like Clyde’s. “It just hurts to believe that people can think that it was a normal day, it was a tour. It’s hurtful that they can say things like that when we had officers give their life to make sure that they were safe.”

One recent defendant charged with assault is Christopher Warnagiris, an active-duty Marine accused of shoving his way into a door at the Capitol as an officer struggled to keep it closed. After he made it inside, he blocked officers from stopping others from getting through the door. 

Other stark examples include Thomas Sibick, a Buffalo, New York, man accused of ripping the badge off the chest of Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone, along with his radio; Sibick allegedly later buried the badge in his back yard.

A screenshot from a police body camera alleged to show defendant Thomas Sibick just before he ripped a radio and badge off of an officer’s chest as the officer was dragged through the crowd, beaten, and tased.

US Department of Justice

Peter Stager of Arkansas was captured on video beating a DC Metropolitan Police officer, identified as “B.M.,” using a flagpole bearing an American flag. According to the FBI charging document, Stager later said on video that “everybody” in the Capitol “is a treasonous traitor,” and that “death is the only remedy.” He later claimed to a confidential FBI source that he thought he was attacking “ANTIFA,” even though “METROPOLITAN POLICE” was clearly visible on the back of the officer’s uniform in all capital letters.

A series of screenshots from the FBI charging document alleging to show Peter Stager beating a police officer with a flagpole.

US Department of Justice

“The fighting…was nothing short of brutal,” Fanone wrote in a May 5 letter to Congress. He described how he’d been “pulled into the crowd, away from my fellow officers, beaten with fists, metal objects, stripped of my issued badge, radio and ammunition magazine and electrocuted numerous times with a Taser.” Court records allege that someone in the mob tried to take Fanone’s gun as well, yelling that they were going to kill him with it.

Fanone praised the camaraderie displayed by his fellow officers that day, but said he still struggles with what happened. “As the physical injuries gradually subsided in crept the psychological trauma,” he wrote. “I struggle daily with the emotional anxiety of having survived such a traumatic event but I also struggle with the anxiety of hearing those who continue to downplay the events of that day and those who would ignore them altogether with their lack of acknowledgement. The indifference shown to my colleagues and I is disgraceful.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate