A professional butcher whose bloody, wild-eyed face became one of the most memorable images of the US Capitol riot was sentenced Thursday to more than seven years in prison for hurling a bow like a spear at police and attacking several other officers, the AP reports. Kyle Fitzsimons, 39, of Maine, was wearing a white butcher's coat embroidered with his first name when he separately assaulted at least five officers near a tunnel as police desperately tried to protect an entrance to the Capitol from the angry mob of then-President Trump's supporters, prosecutors said. The federal judge who sentenced Fitzsimons also convicted him of 11 charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. US District Judge Rudolph Contreras heard testimony without a jury at a bench trial for Fitzsimons last September.
The judge said Fitzsimons attacked police in a "burst of frenzied fury" and unleashed an "orgy of assaultive rage" that lasted a few minutes. "He was part of the most violent clashes that day," Contreras said. Fitzsimons apologized to the officers he attacked, the court, his family, and "anyone else I've disappointed by my conduct." He said he initially resisted the idea that he posed a "danger to the republic." "But now I know it to be true," he told the judge before learning his sentence. Fitzsimons was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He has been in custody since February 2021, and will get credit for the two years and five months he already has served in jail.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 15 years and eight months for Fitzsimons, calling him one of the most violent and aggressive participants in the riot. They said he caused a "career-ending and life-altering" shoulder injury to Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. Fitzsimons traveled to Washington, DC, from his home in Lebanon, Maine, a day before the riot erupted. After attending Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, he returned to his car and changed clothes, donning his butcher's coat. He also wore a fur pelt around his neck and carried an unstrung wooden archery bow. In a separate case Wednesday, Daniel Lyons Scott, 29, a member of the Proud Boys extremist group who goes by the nickname "Milkshake," was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to felony charges—including assault—in the riot.
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