A Van Nuys man described by federal prosecutors as “some of the violent rioters” through the Jan. 6 Capitol revolt was sentenced to twenty years in jail Friday, one of many longest sentences issued to a defendant for the assault.
David Nicholas Dempsey, 37, used flag poles, steel crutches and damaged items of furnishings through the 2021 riot, injuring police and different insurrectionists, based on courtroom paperwork. He pleaded responsible to assaulting a regulation enforcement officer with a harmful weapon and breach of the U.S. Capitol in January.
Protesters collect on the second day of pro-Trump occasions fueled by President Donald Trump’s continued claims of election fraud in an to overturn the outcomes earlier than Congress finalizes them in a joint session of the 117th Congress on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Instances)
Dempsey traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Cease the Steal” rally and is seen in video standing close to a wood construction representing a dangling gallows whereas saying politicians like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Nadler ought to be hanged in a livestream on YouTube.
“That’s what they want,” Dempsey mentioned in a YouTube livestream, based on prosecutors. “They don’t want a jail cell.”
Shortly after, Dempsey took half in among the most violent assaults captured on video on Jan. 6.
In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors referred to Dempsey’s actions through the Jan. 6 rebellion as among the many most violent.
“For over one hour, defendant David Dempsey viciously assaulted and injured cops defending the Decrease West Terrce Tunnel with quite a lot of implements he refashioned as weapons,” prosecutors argued in courtroom filings. “Dempsey was some of the violent rioters, throughout some of the violent stretches of time, on the scene of essentially the most violent confrontations on the Capitol.”
This picture from video from the Justice Division contained within the sentencing memorandum, and annotated by the supply, exhibits David Nicholas Dempsey throwing a pole at a police officer within the Decrease West Terrace Tunnel on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Dempsey, a California man with a historical past of political violence, was sentenced on Aug. 9, 2024, to twenty years in jail for repeatedly attacking police with flagpoles and different makeshift weapons through the riot on the U.S. Capitol.
(Justice Dept. / Related Press)
Whereas different Jan. 6 rioters slowly made their technique to the Capitol, prosecutors mentioned Dempsey climbed over individuals, “utilizing them like human scaffolding, thrusting himself to the entrance.”
Dempsey used flag poles, crutches, pepper spray and items of furnishings as weapons, in what officers described as a chronic assault that affected each side of the melee.
“Dempsey’s violence reached such extremes that, at one level, he attacked a fellow rioter who was attempting to disarm him,” prosecutors wrote.
When one rioter compromised the fuel masks of a Metropolitan Police Division Detective, Dempsey used pepper spray to assault the officer.
Minutes later, Dempsey additionally hit one other officer with a steel crutch, making the officer fall again in a daze and together with his fuel masks face protect crushed.
United States Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger applauded the sentence Friday.
“David Dempsey was some of the violent contributors and at occasions lead components of the assaults on a number of officers who had been defending the Capitol that day,” Manger mentioned in a press release. “We thank the FBI, the Division of Justice, and the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for his or her work in investigating and prosecuting this case.”
In searching for a extreme sentence, prosecutors argued Dempsey had a historical past of political violence. In 2019, he was arrested on suspicion of utilizing pepper spray throughout a political rally.
Dempsey is one in all 1,488 individuals who have confronted prison prices associated to the Jan. 6 assault. Final month, two ladies from Southern California had been charged for his or her position within the revolt. In March, prosecutors charged a girl from Northridge.
Their respective futures and their jail sentences may dangle within the steadiness throughout this 12 months’s presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump, has mentioned in earlier interviews, together with throughout a latest look with a panel from the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists, that he would challenge pardons to Jan. 6 rioters.
“Oh, completely, I’d, in the event that they’re harmless I’d pardon them,” Trump mentioned through the panel. “They had been convicted by a really robust system.”
