‘The violence was you’: January 6 rioter who assaulted Michael Fanone sentenced to over 7 years in prison

By Holmes Lybrand

Kyle Young, one of several rioters who attacked Washington, DC, police officer Michael Fanone during the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol was sentenced to 86 months in prison on Tuesday.

“On January 6, the violence was you,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Young before handing down the sentence, adding that he was a “one man wrecking ball” that day who attacked Fanone “under the whirling banner of a ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag.”

In May, Young pleaded guilty to assaulting Fanone, holding his wrist and pulling his arm while the officer was dragged into the mob by other rioters.

Fanone has since left the Metropolitan Police and is now a CNN contributor.

After being pulled from the line of officers, Fanone was then beaten by rioters during one of the most brutal assaults on police protecting the Capitol that day. He was tased in the neck and eventually lost consciousness during the attack, where he had begged rioters for his life and told them he had children.

Young, Jackson said, was the individual who handed another rioter the stun gun used to electrocute Fanone. Young then showed the individual how to operate the device.

“You had to teach him how to turn it on,” Jackson said, “you armed someone.”

The individual, Daniel Rodriguez, is charged with electrocuting Fanone several times in his neck and has pleaded not guilty.

“I hope someday you’ll forgive me,” Young, who brought his 16-year-old son with him to the Capitol, said to Fanone during the sentencing hearing. “I know you hate me.”

Young told the judge that “whatever you give me as punishment I accept and I probably deserve.”

During the sentencing, prosecutors played video of Fanone being swallowed into the mass of attackers. “You can hear screams on the video. Screams,” Jackson said of Fanone’s calls for the rioters to stop.

Fanone, who spoke during Tuesday’s hearing, asked Jackson to sentence Young to 10 years behind bars and spoke of how he was “violently beaten.” The former officer said he was prevented by Young from grabbing his firearm or radio, which he called his “lifeline.”

“I would have lost my life,” Fanone said, were it not for others in the mob who dragged him out.

“The assault on me by Mr. Young cost me my career,” Fanone added, before turning to Young and telling him hoped he suffered in his time in prison.

As Fanone walked back to his seat in the courtroom, one man sitting in the audience called Fanone a “piece of s**t” and was quickly removed from the courtroom by a deputy US Marshal.

One of Young’s co-defendants, Albuquerque Head, also pleaded guilty to the assault and will be sentenced in late October.

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