By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON — 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 Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
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 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 steel crutch and attacked police with pepper spray and damaged items of furnishings, prosecutors stated.
LIST: Southern California residents accused or convicted in the Capitol insurrection
He climbed atop different rioters, utilizing them like “human scaffolding” to succeed in officers guarding a tunnel entrance. He injured not less than two cops, prosecutors stated.
“Your conduct on January sixth was exceptionally egregious,” U.S. District Decide Royce Lamberth informed 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 obtained an extended sentence within the Jan. 6 assault. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for orchestrating a plot to cease the peaceable switch of energy from Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
Dempsey known as his conduct “reprehensible” and apologized to the cops whom he assaulted.
“You have been performing your duties, and I responded with hostility and violence,” he stated 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 fast-food 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 U.S. Legal professional Douglas Brasher informed the choose.
Protection legal professional Amy Collins, who sought a sentence of 6 years and 6 months, described the federal government’s sentencing advice as “ridiculous.”
“It makes him a statistic,” she stated. “It doesn’t take into account the particular person he’s, how a lot he has grown.”
Dempsey was sporting 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 MPD Sgt. Jason Mastony within the head with a steel crutch, cracking the protect on his fuel masks and reducing his head.
“I collapsed and caught myself towards the wall as my ears rang. I used to be in a position to stand once more and maintain the road for just a few extra minutes till one other assault by rioters pushed the police line again away from the brink of the tunnel,” Mastony stated in a press release submitted to the courtroom.
Dempsey has been jailed since his arrest in August 2021.
His prison report in California contains convictions for housebreaking, theft and assault. The assault conviction stemmed from an October 2019, gathering close to the Santa Monica Pier, where Dempsey attacked people peacefully demonstrating against then-President Donald Trump, prosecutors stated.
“The peaceable protest turned violent as Dempsey took a canister of bear spray from his pants and dispersed it at shut vary towards 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 prison fees “for numerous causes,” in response to prosecutors. They stated Dempsey struck a counter-protester over the pinnacle 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 steel bat throughout a August 2020 protest in Beverly Hills, California.
Greater than 1,400 individuals have been charged with Jan. 6-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have been convicted and sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving phrases of imprisonment starting from just a few days to the 22 years that Tarrio obtained.
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