A Pennsylvania Trump fanatic who pleaded guilty to a pair of assault charges for fighting police and an Associated Press journalist during last year’s Trump-incited Capitol riot got just under three years in prison last week.
Alan Byerly was sentenced by federal Judge Randolph Moss to 34 months in prison, which is below the 46 months in prison that prosecutors sought. At the Capitol, Byerly was involved in fighting around the building’s West Front. He had a stun gun, and once police wrested it from him, he nonetheless kept at his aggression. “Officers successfully removed the stun gun from Byerly, but he continued to charge officers, physically striking and pushing them. He also grabbed an officer’s baton,” according to the Justice Department. As for the journalist, whose fate during the riot seemed clearly targeted on the basis of their work for the Associated Press, Byerly joined in with an assault also perpetrated by others. He dragged the victim away from the Capitol stairs, with an unclear aim. Aggression against the media repeatedly unfolded during the Capitol assault, clearly connected to Trump’s rhetoric.
If there’s one thing that has defined Trump’s approach to an extremely broad array of policy areas and general concerns, it’s antagonism of the media, which he has even referred to as the enemy of the people. In another riot case involving five men in their 20s, who were broadly tied to the America First movement led in part by white nationalist extremist Nicholas Fuentes — whose conference featured Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as a speaker, authorities recently outlined how Joseph Brody and Gabriel Chase joined the destruction of media equipment left outside the Capitol. The latter took a pair of headphones. As for Byerly, he was apparently also involved with pushing a massive metal sign into police. As reported on this site, two other rioters involved with pushing what would apparently be that same sign into police were each sentenced last month to 41 months in prison. An officer said over a dozen personnel were required to remove the sign because of its size after rioters shoved it into cops.
In another notable case connected to the riot, Richard Slaughter — a Washington man who joined the riot — told investigators under questioning last year that “conservatives don’t protest, they have jobs.” Well, available documentation that has since emerged shows Slaughter among those seemingly trying to force their way into the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel, where Slaughter repeatedly hit — or at least tried to hit — police with a pole of unclear origin, evidently eventually making contact. He participated with his stepson, who was elsewhere in the crowd and was also charged.
Image: Tyler Merbler/ Creative Commons
