MAGA Rioter Who Assaulted 3 Officers Found Guilty Of 6 Felonies

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A Capitol rioter — Maine man Kyle Fitzsimons — who was in the crowd fighting police in the Lower West Terrace tunnel area at the Capitol during last year’s Trump-incited mob attack was found guilty this Tuesday of 11 criminal charges, including six felonies.

Fitzsimons engaged in physical altercations at the Capitol with at least three officers, including Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who the defendant’s public defender maligned in court during the trial, claiming he was trying to profit off his experience at the Capitol facing down Fitzsimons and so many other rioters. Gonell denied the accusations. At the Capitol, Fitzsimons was carrying a bow which he previously characterized as an attempt at a message of peace, which is certainly a notable addition to the list of excuses for actions by the rioters. The point was evidently that it wasn’t strung with any arrows, which isn’t much of an argument, since he could have been carrying arrows and added one in a snap. What’s next? “This loaded gun is actually my way of showing how much I love democracy and accepting the results of elections”? (A guy who carried a loaded gun during the Capitol chaos, Indiana’s Mark Mazza, where he lost the firearm should receive six and a half years in prison, prosecutors recently argued in court.)

Fitzsimons eventually threw his bow at police, hitting officer Sarah Beaver, with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, in the head, although she was wearing a helmet. Gonell, Beaver, and D.C. Police Sgt. Phuson Nguyen, who Fitzsimons also assaulted, all testified at the trial, which took place in August. In Nguyen’s case, the officer testified that Fitzsimons pulled the officer’s gas mask, exposing his face, as another member of the crowd sprayed a chemical irritant, after which point Fitzsimons let the mask go against Nguyen’s face, thereby trapping the spray inside. The incident was captured on camera. “At that point I was choking under the mask,” Nguyen testified in court. “I also got knocked down at the same time… In my head, I thought that was it for me. I thought that’s where I’m going to die… In my head, I told myself, ‘If you want to see your family again, you need to gather yourself.'”

As for Gonell, who was among the officers who spoke about their experiences to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, the officer said Fitzsimons grabbed his arm and tried pulling him out of the tunnel, which video also captured, although Fitzsimons’s defense questioned what could be gleaned from available footage of the defendant’s actions. Gonell sustained serious injuries, including a partially torn rotator cuff and labrum. Fitzsimons faced charges including obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, and four counts of assault, alongside the misdemeanors of which he was also convicted. One of the assault charges was specified as assaulting an officer causing bodily injury, covering the assault on Gonell, and the judge also found the defendant guilty of that specific allegation, which means the assault charge enhanced as such comes with up to 20 years in prison, although he’s likely to face much less time.

Fitzsimons, who has a history of racist remarks in his community, is in detention. Greg Hunter was a defense attorney for Fitzsimons earlier in the process, and he provided NPR insights about the defendant: “He was most impressed that my name is Hunter and that the U.S. attorney was the last name of Wolfe. And so he was very impressed that I was going to be able to hunt the wolf. And I hadn’t heard anything like that since about the third grade.”

Image: Tyler Merbler/ Creative Commons