In one assault, prosecutors stated, Mr. Fitzsimons swiped repeatedly at an officer, attempting to hit him and dislodge his fuel masks. He then grabbed maintain of one other officer, Aquilino Gonell, and wrenched his shoulder so badly that it ended his profession.
After that, prosecutors stated, Mr. Fitzsimons charged twice into yet one more group of officers, wildly swinging his fists and “indiscriminately trying to punch any officer he could reach.” Finally, after strolling away from the fray, Mr. Fitzsimons appeared to rejoice the assaults he had dedicated.
When one other member of the mob stopped him and stated, “You’re an American hero, buddy,” he responded, “My name is Kyle Fitzsimons.” Prosecutors stated he “wanted recognition and notoriety for what he had done.”
Addressing Judge Contreras, Mr. Fitzsimons stated he had abdicated his “duty to generations before and after me” by contributing to the violence and vowed by no means to repeat his offenses. Through tears, he apologized to Mr. Gonell, who appeared in courtroom on Thursday bearing a $21,175 medical invoice associated to his accidents that he instructed Judge Contreras he was unable to pay.
The decide stated he believed that Mr. Fitzsimons’s willingness to assault uniformed law enforcement officials amid an “orgy of assaultive rage” confirmed he was prone to emotional outbursts and groupthink and remained an “inherently dangerous” individual. He additionally questioned how Mr. Fitzsimons and others like him would possibly react to the upcoming presidential election, during which former President Donald J. Trump is as soon as once more a vocal contender.
During one in all a number of interviews he gave from jail, Mr. Fitzsimons used the saying “Don’t give up the ship,” prosecutors stated, as a solution to urge his listeners to unfold the “false narrative” that he and different Jan. 6 defendants had been “being politically persecuted for their beliefs, not their conduct.”
In a letter submitted to the courtroom, Mr. Gonell requested Judge Contreras to carry Mr. Fitzsimons accountable for his assaults to stop “another Jan. 6.”
“Downplaying what transpired and not punishing the violent mob for their roles would make it more likely to recur,” he wrote. “Everything my fellow officers and I sacrificed would be desecrated. We defended the Capitol, not from a foreign entity, but from fellow Americans who attacked us.”
Source: www.nytimes.com