Posted on 07/26/2022 6:06:56 PM PDT by Coronal
A man who attacked police officers with poles during the riot at the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions.
Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison.
That was three months longer than the prison sentence requested by prosecutors. And it’s the same sentence that Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol.
Chutkan said Ponder was “leading the charge” against police officers trying to hold off the mob that disrupted Congress from certifying President Biden’s electoral victory.
“This is not ‘caught up,’ Mr. Ponder,” she said. “He was intent on attacking and injuring police officers. This was not a protest.”
Chutkan has consistently taken a hard line in punishing Capitol rioters. She has handed down terms of imprisonment to all 13 riot defendants who have come before her, matching or exceeding the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation in every case, according to an Associated Press review of court records.
Prosecutors had recommended a five-year prison sentence for Ponder, who has been jailed since his arrest in March 2021.
In April, Ponder pleaded guilty to an assault charge punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of nearly five years to just under six years, but Chutkan wasn’t bound by those recommendations.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Can’t help but notice in that picture that he appears to be the only one fighting, and the “mob” is just standing around while three cops are free to deal with him. There might be a scuffle somewhere else but it isn’t evident in that shot.
Again, in this second picture, he is the only person violently engaging the cops. Everyone else looks disinterested.
This third picture, he has dropped his coat and now people seem interested, but again, he is the only one who appears to be carrying so much as a stick, and everyone else is just standing there in a very unmoblike fashion.
That is the disappointed look you see when an agitator can’t motivate a crowd. I have seen it before, when party planners buy food and balloons and alcohol, hire a band, and can’t get a room full of Republicans riled up to party past their bed time.
Why should he pardon anyone who actually did use violence? Pardon the nonviolent ones makes sense but not the violent ones who for all anyone knows were agents provocateur.
And as for Robert Palmer of Florida, here he is claiming the devil made him do it, as if it wasn’t 100% his own decision.
Blaming others isn’t cool, but it sure helps the enemy:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4022233/posts
I figure he had issues with officers in general - might be his rage against the
blue playing out as he does have a criminal record.
BTW it’s also said after he was arrested the first time they let him go and told him not to go back - he went back.
The guy’’s getting what he asked for as I see it.
I figure he had issues with officers in general - might be his rage against the
blue playing out as he does have a criminal record.
BTW it’s also said after he was arrested the first time they let him go and told him not to go back - he went back.
The guy’’s getting what he asked for as I see it.
Not only did he get another pole, he got a completely new outfit. How does that happen in the middle of a 'riot'?
From Wiki:
The People’s Court under Roland Freisler’s domination almost always sided with the prosecuting authority, to the point that being brought before it was tantamount to a capital charge. Its separate administrative existence beyond the ordinary judicial system, despite its trappings, rapidly turned it into an executive execution arm and psychological domestic terror weapon of Nazi Germany’s totalitarian regime, in the tradition of a revolutionary tribunal rather than a court of law.
Judge Tanya Chutkan likewise heads a political revolutionary tribunal rather than a court of law.
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