An ex-police officer from Tennessee was sentenced this week to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal charges over participation in the 2021 Capitol attack and then getting convicted by a jury the following month of five additional felonies.
Defendant Ronald Colton McAbee’s offenses included two counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding police, and his specific sentence was 70 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Notably, federal Judge Rudolph Contreras also imposed over $32,000 in financial penalties on McAbee.
McAbee traveled to D.C. evidently prepared for potential violence, procuring and then wearing a pair of gloves reinforced with brass knuckles, according to federal authorities’ account. He was also seemingly proud of his involvement in the Capitol mayhem, posing for a photo referenced by the federal press release in which he’s showing off newspaper coverage of the “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol. McAbee was ready for additional violence in the post-riot period, remarking in a text conversation cited by the same federal source that he would “shed much more in the days to come.” He meant blood.
At the actual Capitol, authorities said that McAbee joined an assault that left one officer with injuries including a concussion and abrasions. After McAbee grabbed an already beleaguered officer before falling with the target into a nearby crowd, “McAbee held the officer down while other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds before the officer was finally able to get up and work his way back to the Archway,” per the same Justice Department recap. He reportedly swung at another officer who tried to assist the targeted member of law enforcement during the ordeal.
McAbee’s sentencing came years after an initial arrest in August of 2021.
No matter the brutal details backed by guilty pleas, jurors’ decisions, and rulings from federal judges, former President Donald Trump continues referring to detainees with criminal allegations originating in the Capitol riot as “hostages,” alleging political plots underpin their cases. He has repeatedly proposed issuing pardons for January 6 participants if he regains the White House.
