Left: Justice Department released footage from Damon Michael Beckley showing a law enforcement officer with his gun drawn as rioters attempted to enter a barricaded chamber on Jan. 6, 2021 (via NBC News/YouTube screengrab). Center: Damon Michael Beckley booking photo (via Grayson County Detention Center). Right: In same footage from the DOJ, U.S. Rep Troy Nehls points his finger at rioters to scold them (via NBC News/YouTube screengrab).
A Kentucky man who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and filmed a very tense exchange between rioters and lawmakers as armed police protected legislators from the mob was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday.
Prosecutors originally sought 37 months.
Damon Michael Beckley, 55, of Cub Run, was arrested and indicted roughly a week after the attack on the Capitol on just two charges.
Later, a superseding indictment upped the ante to six. He was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding; civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted area, building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a restricted area; disorderly conduct in of the Capitol building; and parading and demonstrating inside of the Capitol. According to a paperless order on the docket entered Monday, however, prosecutors did not oppose dropping some of the charges, and four were dismissed.
His 18-month sentence ordered by U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg on Monday was for the two felony counts of obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder. Beckley was convicted a year ago this month during a stipulated trial.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, on Jan. 6, once inside the House chamber, officers had drawn their weapons and barricaded doors in order stop Beckley and other rioters from breaching the room where members of Congress were trapped inside.
“Beckley remained just outside the House Chamber door, urging police to let the mob into the House Chamber,” the Justice Department said. “Police eventually forced Beckley away from the House Chamber. While being removed from the area, Beckley turned around, got in a police officer’s face, and yelled, ‘[D]on’t push on me, man, I’m moving!””
Once outside of the Capitol, he recorded a selfie video on his phone, reliving his experience.
“Just came out of the Capitol building,” he said. “Had a nine-millimeter pointed in my face by the fools in this Congressional Chamber.”
He reentered the Capitol via the East Rotunda Door, joining a crowd that had settled between the door and the Capitol Rotunda. Within 15 minutes, court records state, he was “forced out” of the Capitol and onto Capitol grounds.
He didn’t rush home, though. He gave an interview, claiming he had seen “a girl” get shot.
The “girl” was rioter Ashli Babbitt.
As Law&Crime reported last month, Babbitt’s husband has since sued the federal government claiming that the officer who shot her as she tried to push her way through a broken glass panel did so unjustifiably. Babbitt was unarmed when she was killed.
“We’re all crying like we can’t save her and you [sic] her blood is on your hands Mike Pence,” Beckley said in the interview on Jan. 6, according to court records.
The dramatic video Beckley shot from inside the Capitol was only recently made public after a request from NBC News.
The video shows a tense exchange outside of the House chamber doors in which rioters and lawmakers yell at one another. Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, can be heard scolding the rioters, telling them that in his 30 years in law enforcement, he had “never seen people like this.”
“I’m ashamed,” Nehls can be heard saying.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin, then a Republican representative in the House for Oklahoma, can also briefly be seen in the video though he does not address Beckley or other rioters. Mullin is now a U.S. senator.
As the rioters’ yelling grew louder and with glass on the partition already broken and its shards littering the foreground, the camera quickly pans back and forth between an armed police officer and the frantic lawmakers.
The officer who shot Babbitt was cleared of criminal and internal wrongdoing in 2021.
