On Thursday, a Jan. 6 rioter who dragged former D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone into the crowd on the steps of the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison. 43-year-old Albuquerque Head from Tennessee was sentenced to 90 months in federal prison, one of the longest sentences to date in the Capitol riot cases. Head will get credit for the roughly 18 months he’s spent locked up already.
Head dragged Fanone into the mob on Jan. 6 while yelling “I got one!” and used a police shield to push against a line of police officers in the western-facing tunnel of the U.S. Capitol, where some of the most violent acts of the insurrection took place. He pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Fanone suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury in the Jan. 6 assault, and ended up resigning from the Metropolitan Police Department.
Fanone urged Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Head to the maximum, saying that Head had cut his career in law enforcement short. Judge Amy Berman Jackson called Head’s actions “some of the darkest acts committed on one of our nation’s darkest days.” She described former Officer Fanone as Head’s “prey” and his “trophy.” She also described Fanone as “protecting America” during the riot.
Fanone has testified before the Jan. 6 committee and recently wrote a book about the insurrection, but said the injuries he received has left him devastated that he lost his career in law enforcement: “I would trade all of this attention to return to policing,” he said. “But I can’t do that.”
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