A California man with a historical past of political violence was sentenced on Friday to twenty years in jail for repeatedly attacking police with flagpoles and different makeshift weapons throughout the US Capitol riot on 6 January.
David Nicholas Dempsey’s sentence is among the many longest amongst a whole bunch of Capitol riot prosecutions. Prosecutors described him as one of the vital violent members of the mob of Donald Trump supporters that attacked the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Dempsey, who’s from Van Nuys, stomped on cops’ heads. He swung poles at officers defending a tunnel, struck an officer within the head with a metallic crutch and attacked police with pepper spray and damaged items of furnishings, prosecutors mentioned.
He climbed atop different rioters, utilizing them like “human scaffolding” to achieve officers guarding a tunnel entrance. He injured not less than two cops, prosecutors mentioned.
“Your conduct on January 6 was exceptionally egregious,” US district choose Royce Lamberth instructed Dempsey. “You didn’t get carried away within the second.”
Dempsey pleaded responsible in January to 2 counts of assaulting cops with a harmful weapon.
Solely former Proud Boys chief Enrique Tarrio has acquired an extended sentence within the January 6 assault. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for orchestrating a plot to cease the peaceable switch of energy from Trump to Biden after the 2020 election.
Dempsey referred to as his conduct “reprehensible” and apologized to the cops whom he assaulted.
“You had been performing your duties, and I responded with hostility and violence,” he mentioned earlier than studying his sentence.
Justice division prosecutors advisable a jail sentence of 21 years and 10 months for Dempsey, a former development employee and quick meals restaurant worker. Dempsey’s violence was so excessive that he attacked a fellow rioter who was making an attempt to disarm him, prosecutors wrote.
“David Dempsey is political violence personified,” assistant US legal professional Douglas Brasher instructed the choose.
Protection legal professional Amy Collins, who sought a sentence of six years and 6 months, described the federal government’s sentencing advice as “ridiculous”.
“It makes him a statistic,” she mentioned. “It doesn’t take into account the particular person he’s, how a lot he has grown.”
Dempsey was carrying a tactical vest, a helmet and an American flag gaiter masking his face when he attacked police at a tunnel resulting in the decrease west terrace doorways. He shot pepper spray at Metropolitan police division detective Phuson Nguyen simply as one other rioter yanked on the officer’s fuel masks.
“The searing spray burned Detective Nguyen’s lungs, throat, eyes and face and left him gasping for breath, fearing he may lose consciousness and be overwhelmed by the mob,” prosecutors wrote.
Dempsey then struck Metropolitan police sergeant Jason Mastony within the head with a metallic crutch, cracking the protect on his fuel masks and chopping his head.
“I collapsed and caught myself in opposition to the wall as my ears rang. I used to be capable of stand once more and maintain the road for a couple of extra minutes till one other assault by rioters pushed the police line again away from the edge of the tunnel,” Mastony mentioned in a press release submitted to the courtroom.
Dempsey has been jailed since his arrest in August 2021.
His felony report in California consists of convictions for housebreaking, theft and assault. The assault conviction stemmed from an October 2019 gathering close to the Santa Monica pier, the place Dempsey attacked folks peacefully demonstrating in opposition to then president Trump, prosecutors mentioned.
“The peaceable protest turned violent as Dempsey took a canister of bear spray from his pants and dispersed it at shut vary in opposition to a number of protesters,” they wrote, noting that Dempsey was sentenced to 200 days of jail time.
Dempsey engaged in not less than three different acts of “vicious political violence” that didn’t result in felony prices “for varied causes”, in line with prosecutors. They mentioned Dempsey struck a counter-protester over the top with a skateboard at a June 2019 rally in Los Angeles; used the identical skateboard to assault somebody at an August 2020 protest in Tujunga, California; and attacked a protester with pepper spray and a metallic bat throughout a August 2020 protest in Beverly Hills, California.
Greater than 1,400 folks have been charged with January 6-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have been convicted and sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving phrases of imprisonment starting from a couple of days to the 22 years that Tarrio acquired.
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