An admitted participant in the violent Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, was sentenced this week to 74 months in prison, which works out to more than six years in detention.
Defendant Andrew Taake, a Texas man, admitted to a single felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon after using what authorities said included chemical irritants and a “metal whip” against police. A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., also said that Taake arrived at the U.S. Capitol in the first place “while on pretrial release for a still-pending child-solicitation case in Texas.”
Taake, authorities say, used a chemical irritant — bear spray, apparently — against police at least four times. And at one juncture, “several officers were engaged in a physical struggle with rioters on the West Plaza. Police body-worn footage shows Taake emerging from the crowd and attacking an MPD officer, making contact with the officer’s forearm with his metal whip,” the government added.
Taake reportedly spoke about his conduct via a dating app in the aftermath, and the person on the other end relayed contents of the conversation and details on Taake to federal investigators. At the Capitol, he was also among those who actually went inside the building, which is a subset of the crowds where prosecutors have focused — though he would have already been on prosecutors’ radar because of the physical violence perpetrated outside the building, another key focus for authorities. Taake went inside the building mere minutes after it was breached for the first time by riot participants that day.
Still hanging over all of these proceedings are the repeated proposals from former President Donald Trump for presidential pardons or a related form of legal help for Capitol riot defendants in the event that he wins the 2024 election. It’s no secret that many such defendants were specifically accused of violence.
