A Pennsylvania man who beat a Washington, D.C., police officer with a Trump flag through the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault was sentenced Friday to 46 months in jail, federal officers stated.

Howard Richardson, 72, pleaded responsible earlier this 12 months to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers on the Capitol, based on the Division of Justice.

Richardson waved a flag emblazoned with Trump’s title when he breached a restricted space of the Capitol, then he used the pole to strike a police officer a number of occasions, officers stated.

“He raised it and forcefully swung it downward to strike an officer with the Metropolitan Police Division who was standing behind a steel barricade,” based on a Justice Division assertion. “Richardson then struck the officer two extra occasions, utilizing sufficient power to interrupt the flagpole.”

After that, Richardson then pushed a “massive steel signal right into a line of legislation enforcement officers” together with different rioters, officers stated.

Richardson advised the FBI he was “pissed off” in regards to the 2020 presidential election and indignant about alleged voter fraud, NBC Information reported.

“This can be a critical offense,” Decide Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated when she sentenced Richardson. She stated a video of the conflict made it clear that Richardson was “very indignant” when he swung his flagpole with the Trump flag at an officer.

“The intent needs to be to injure the officer, there’s no different purpose to do it,” she added, based on NBC. “It was an rebel, it was not a protest, and positively not a peaceable one.”

Richardson was arrested in November 2021 and pleaded responsible in April.

After he serves his practically four-year jail sentence, Richardson may even be topic to 3 years of supervised launch. He should additionally pay $2,000 in restitution.

The sentence is likely one of the longest handed down out up to now within the Jan. 6 rebel.

Earlier this month, Thomas Robertson, an off-duty Virginia police officer who stormed the Capitol with a fellow officer, was sentenced to greater than seven years in jail, matching the longest jail sentence up to now amongst lots of of Capitol riot circumstances.

However Justice Division officers are in search of the longest jail sentence but in opposition to a Jan. 6 rioter, 17 years, for ex-police officer and former Marine Thomas Webster, who was discovered responsible in Might of 5 felonies and a misdemeanor for his participation within the Capitol siege, together with assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer utilizing a lethal or harmful weapon, and interesting in an act of bodily violence on Capitol grounds.

The sentence could be practically double the longest jail sentence handed down by a courtroom in a Jan. 6 case so far, CBS Information reported.

Webster’s sentencing is scheduled for subsequent Friday.

Greater than 860 individuals have been arrested since Jan. 6 in reference to the assault, based on the Justice Division. Greater than 260 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding legislation enforcement.