US capitol rioter Kyle Young has been sentenced to seven years in prison, with the judge calling him a “one-man wrecking ball”. Young, 38, of Redfield, Iowa, helped in a sustained assault on a police officer on January 6, 2021.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted that Young admitted to helping in the assault during the riot. She gave Young credit for the 17 months he has been held since his arrest, meaning he is likely to serve nearly six years in prison.
The sentence is among the longest handed down so far for the riot, which halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory and sent members of Congress running for their lives. The biggest sentence of 10 years behind bars was given to a former New York City police officer who assaulted an officer at the Capitol with a metal flagpole.
Young cried as he apologised to former DC Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, and said he wished he could take back his actions of that day. “I hope some day you forgive me,” he said.
Fanone told the court about his experience at the hands of the rioters in which he was beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun. Young admitted to handing a stun gun to another rioter who used it on Fanone, and of grabbing the officer’s hand as he struggled to protect himself from the attacking mob.
Fanone said the attack ended his career as an officer. He told Judge Jackson that Young should get 10 years in prison.
He embraced a fellow officer outside the courthouse after the sentencing. He did not speak with media when asked for his reaction the sentence.
He was among the officers who testified before the US house committee that is investigating the insurrection about the violence they experienced that day. Fanone told house investigators that he was “grabbed, beaten, (tasered), all while being called a traitor to my country”. That assault, which stopped only when he said he had children, caused him to have a heart attack.
Young went to the Capitol with his 16-year-old son and video played by federal prosecutors indicated Young took part during fighting on the Capitol’s lower west terrace, including at one point throwing a heavy speaker that hit another rioter, drawing blood.
He used a strobe light to blind fighting officers and at one point gave it to his son, allowing him to directly participate in the fighting, a point the judge used to illustrate her disgust at his actions that day.
