By Andrew Malekoff
In my early days working as a clinical social worker, I was referred a pre-adolescent boy who was described as incorrigible. One of his pastimes was sawing off parking meters and cracking open the change box for the cash inside. He was never caught in the act. Yet he decided to turn one over to the police. He told them that he found it in the street. He received a certificate of commendation at a ceremony held in the local town hall.
On Sept. 1 Donald Trump floated his intention to pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters. He said, “If I decide to run and if I win, I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons. Full pardons … because we can’t let that happen. And I mean full pardons with an apology to many.”
During his waning days in the White House, President Trump had considered a blanket pardon for all individuals who participated in the Capitol riot. Alas, at the time, he was too busy packaging hundreds of classified national defense files for transport to his Florida beach house.
Just who is he speaking about handing out full pardons and apologies to? More than 900 people have been charged in the terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. To date, 376 have pleaded guilty. Their crimes include assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers by using dangerous weapons and inflicting bodily injury.
They seem nice.
Emily Miller, the federal prosecutor who led the evidence-collection efforts for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., reported to Politico that “based on a review of the body-worn-camera footage conducted by our office, the footage displays approximately 1,000 events that may be characterized as assaults on federal officers.”
In a March 7, 2022, report released by the Government Accountability Office, Capitol Police reported 114 officers were injured on Jan. 6. Police officers were pushed down stairs, trampled, punched with fists and pummeled with various objects such as bicycle racks and metal poles. Their injuries included concussions, swollen ankles and wrists, bruised arms and legs, and irritated lungs from bear and pepper spray. At least four officers died from suicide in the months following the attack.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” testified U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in the riot. She compared the scene to a war zone: “There were officers on the ground,” she continued, “they were bleeding, they were throwing up … I saw friends with blood all over their faces, I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage, it was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”
It must have been Antifa, but it wasn’t
Following are a few of the very fine people awaiting Trump’s promise of pardons, including their crimes and sentences, as reported by Time and Newsweek magazines.
Devlyn Thompson, a 28-year-old Seattle man, was sentenced to 46 months in prison after he attacked a police officer with a metal baton. He threw objects at police officers and grabbed their riot shields to prevent them from protecting themselves.
Lonnie Leroy Coffman, a 72-year-old veteran, received a 46-month prison sentence. He came from Alabama with more than a banjo on his knee. The truck he traveled in to the Capitol contained fully loaded, unregistered firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, a crossbow with bolts, machetes, a stun gun, camouflage smoke detectors and 11 gas-filled Mason jars used to make napalm.
Thomas Webster, a 56-year-old retired NYPD officer, is the prize winner for longest sentence thus far – 10 years in prison. He used a metal flagpole to viciously assault one of the police officers.
Julian Khater, a 33-year-old smoothie shop owner, faces up to 20 years. He used pepper spray on police officers, including Brian Sicknick, who collapsed, suffered two strokes and died the next day.
To be clear, Donald Trump created the context and provided the inspiration that led to their rioting and violent assaults against police officers, leading to their arrests, convictions and imprisonment.
And, now there are MAGA Republicans – election deniers who supported the violence, whose feelings are hurt because President Biden referred to Trumpism as “semi-fascism.”
Maybe, along with mass pardons, the former president can provide certificates of commendation for their patriotic efforts.
