The violence that exploded inside of the tunnel at the lower terrace of the U.S. Capitol is a scene that is forever seared into the public record of Jan. 6.
The graphic pinning of an officer in a doorway as he screamed for his life. The grueling slog and squeeze of rioters' and police bodies and the crush of hard riot shields. The spray of chemicals in tight quarters. The gushes of blood from officers' lips and hands and heads.
On Tuesday, that moment came full circle when three of the men involved in or around that melee were found guilty of assaulting or impeding police who guarded the U.S. Capitol.
Patrick McCaughey of Connecticut, 28, was found guilty on multiple charges Tuesday after a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee.
McCaughey was found guilty of assaulting police, obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, disorderly conduct, engaging in physical violence in a restricted area, disorderly conduct in the Capitol building, and acts of physical violence.
The Connecticut man infamously pinned Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police officer, with a riot shield against a doorway as Hodges gasped for breath and endured punches to his head while his gas mask was ripped from his face in air laden with chemical irritants.
When Hodges came before the Jan. 6 committee the summer right after the attack, he told members of the panel he was besieged by “terrorists who perceived themselves to be Christians,” with some carrying flags that said, “don’t give up the ship.”
When he found himself in the tunnel just outside the lower west terrace of the Capitol on Jan. 6 pressed between hard plastic, glass, and metal, blood pouring from his mouth, Hodges would later say that he questioned whether he might live or die as McCaughey and others wedged him in tighter.
McCaughey argued at trial that he was trapped in a situation he didn’t wish to be in on Jan. 6 and was stuck between rioters and police clashing.
But McFadden was unpersuaded by this and another moment that McCaughey recounted at trial as a sort of quasi-epiphany amid the fighting. McCaughey claimed it was Hodges’ blood-curdling scream as the officer was pinned that prompted him to stop, per The Washington Post .
On Tuesday, McFadden set aside this notion from McCaughey and deemed it “implausible” that he and other defendants on Jan. 6, including Tristan Stevens and David Mehaffie, were totally unaware of what they were doing.
In fact, the judge reportedly noted that McCaughey continued to fight with officers after the interaction with Hodges.
The riot shield was used by McCaughey as a dangerous weapon against Hodges in particular, McFadden found.
But this wasn’t the case in other instances where riot shields were used in the clashes with police.
A riot shield was not a dangerous weapon unto itself, the judge found. It was far more dependent upon how it was used.
McFadden acknowledged, however, that the violence visited upon the officers overall on Jan. 6 was altogether “shocking.”
During the tunnel assault, Tristan Stevens of Florida, 26, taunted police. He can be heard on footage asking officers if they “know what happens to traitors.”
“They get tied to a post and shot. Are you ready for that?” Stevens said.
During the bench trial, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell testified that Stevens was among those rioters who attacked police with batons. McFadden said the evidence didn’t bear that out. Stevens did, however, press a police shield into Gonell during the attack, but he was not using it in a way that could be considered deadly, McFadden found.
Ultimately, Stevens was found guilty of assault and multiple other charges, though McFadden spared him of the obstruction of Congress charge.
David Mehaffie of Ohio, 63, was found guilty on four charges for his conduct on Jan. 6, including aiding and abetting the assault of police.
Mehaffie—who earned the nickname “Tunnel Commander” from online sleuths investigating Jan. 6—was heard shouting instructions to members of the mob as they moved through the tunnel and attacked police.
He also incited other rioters, according to the Department of Justice, telling members of the mob who had yet to cross police lines, “if we can’t fight over this wall, we can’t win this battle.”
Mehaffie defended his conduct, saying he was swept up in the moment.
According to the Post, during the bench trial, Mehaffie told McFadden he didn’t know that there was “any expectation except to keep moving” when he helped pass a riot shield forward to rioters crushing officers in the tunnel.
But like Stevens, Mehaffie was acquitted on the obstruction charge.
In McFadden’s estimation, it was not sufficiently proven by prosecutors that either Stevens or Mehaffie was aware that the election certification was underway on Jan. 6 by the time they were slogging it out in the tunnel.
Sentencing for McCaughey, Stevens, and Mehaffie will be spread out in January 2023.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, another Jan. 6 defendant, Jack Whitton of Georgia, 32, entered a guilty plea in Washington before U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan.
Whitton punched and kicked officers on Jan. 6, assaulting one with a metal crutch and dragging another by his helmet into the mob. Whitton also issued stark threats during the siege that officers would be dead by nightfall.
“You’re going to die tonight,” Whitton told one officer, prosecutors said.
Per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Whitton allegedly texted a friend about the police officer he dragged into the crowd.
“Yea I fed him to the people. Idk his status. And don't care tbh,” Whitton wrote.
Whitton will be sentenced in March.