A former officer with the Boston Police Department is facing the serious prospect of a lengthy stint in prison after admitting to a series of criminal charges stemming from involvement in the Capitol riot of early 2021.
Defendant Joseph Robert Fisher was among the Capitol riot participants who actually entered the Capitol building, a subgroup where prosecutors have focused. Inside, Fisher interfered in a police officer’s attempted apprehension of a member of the crowd who had used pepper spray. “As a U.S. Capitol Police Officer pursued a rioter who had deployed pepper spray, Fisher pushed a chair into the Capitol Police Officer. Fisher then engaged in a physical altercation with the Capitol Police Officer,” authorities said in a recent press release.
Offenses to which Fisher admitted include assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder, both of which are felonies and which precedent suggests could together produce serious jail time. Fisher was reportedly arrested less than a year ago, in March 2023. He was not employed by the Boston Police Department at the time. He reportedly exited a lengthy stint of service with that police agency stretching beyond two decades in 2016. He has also been identified specifically as a former K-9 officer in the northeastern city.
New arrests in Capitol riot cases have also continued, including that of a New York man named James Weeks accused of joining violence against police in the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel and then helping shatter a window elsewhere, spraying what authorities said was seemingly a can of pepper spray through the opening that was left behind. Notably, Weeks also identified himself by his actual name in video footage taken that day, according to authorities. His charges also include assaulting, resisting, or impeding police — something alleged so far of hundreds upon hundreds who were accused of joining the day’s violence.
