A California man who used an electroshock weapon on a Washington police officer during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison Wednesday.
Daniel Rodriguez, 40, pleaded guilty in February to four felony counts, including conspiracy and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson described him as a “one-man army of hate, attacking police officers and destroying property,” NBC News reported.
“You showed up in D.C. spoiling for a fight,” Berman continued, The Wall Street Journal reported.
HuffPost first identified Rodriguez as the man who used a stun gun on an officer just over a month after the riot. At the time, he was well known among the Los Angeles area’s far-right community as a Donald Trump superfan.
In the lead-up to his sentencing, prosecutors laid out evidence that Rodriguez pressed an electroshock weapon twice into the neck of Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was swept into the mob while guarding the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the Capitol. Fanone was able to retreat from the rioters before collapsing, and a fellow officer came to assist him.
Fanone spoke at Rodriguez’s sentencing on Wednesday, saying he feels nothing for the criminal.
“I don’t give a shit about Daniel Rodriguez. He ceased to exist to me as a person a long time ago,” Fanone, now retired from the police force, said in court, NBC News reported. “Any compassion or empathy I felt toward those who laid siege to our Capitol, whose actions I felt were at least in part influenced by their leader Donald Trump and his lies, has been eroded — eroded by the attacks directed at me and my family by supporters of Donald Trump and the right-wing media.”
Fanone also called for the Justice Department to indict Trump for the violence, saying he represents the “divisive movement” that led to the Capitol riot.
Two other men are serving prison time for attacking Fanone. Albuquerque Cosper Head was sentenced last year to 7.5 years and Kyle Young to seven years.
Prosecutors sought 14 years for Rodriguez, noting in a court filing ahead of sentencing that he wrote in a group chat with other Trump supporters: “There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution.”
On his way out of court Wednesday, according to several reporters covering the trial, Rodriguez shouted: “Trump won!”