10 | April | 2024 | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

…In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr. Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day. On January 5, he posted on social media: “[B]urn the city down. What the British did to DC will be nothing . . .” Trial Exhibit 904G. The next day, while marching to the Capitol, he recorded and posted a video in which he proclaimed “we’re walking over to the Capitol right now, and I don’t know, maybe we’ll break down the doors.” Presentence Report (PSR) ¶ 26, ECF No. 266.

Once he got to the restricted grounds of the Capitol, he made his way to the vanguard of the crowd, all the while yelling into the megaphone he had brought with him. PSR ¶¶ 27–29. As Metropolitan Police Department Captain David Augustine testified at trial, rioters eventually overwhelmed the police line and forced the officers to retreat up the Capitol’s Southwest stairs, under the scaffolding created for the inauguration.

The video played at trial shows that Mr. Johnatakis led the charge up the stairs. He soon reached a fallback line of barricades manned by police in order to protect the Capitol building itself and the Members of Congress, staff, and others inside. See PSR ¶¶ 29–31. When he got there, he waved on more people toward the police line, and through his megaphone barked commands to “pack it in!” PSR ¶ 32. So, although one of the letters claims that Mr. Johnatakis “set out with good intentions and ended up in a crowd of orchestrated out of control protestors,” in fact it was Mr. Johnatakis himself who organized protestors to violence that day.

Once enough rioters had heeded his calls and swarmed against the police line, Mr. Johnatakis deployed his megaphone to give encouragement and step-by-step instructions for overpowering the police. PSR ¶ 33. As he announced “one, two, three, GO!” he and his fellow rioters—including his co-defendants Craig Bingert and Isaac Sturgeon—picked up the metal barricades and slammed them into the police officers. PSR ¶ 33.

Mr. Johnatakis and the others then raised the barriers higher until they were about head-level with the officers, so that the mob could brawl with the officers without the barriers getting in the way. PSR ¶ 33. In the resulting melee, Mr. Johnatakis seized MPD Officer Juan Gonzalez by the arm. PSR ¶ 33.

Officer Gonzalez testified at trial that with Mr. Johnatakis holding his arm in place, he was unable to hold back the line of rioters or protect himself. Nov. 20, 2023 Trial Tr. at 67. By effectively disarming Officer Gonzalez, Mr. Johnatakis made him vulnerable to serious injury, or worse. Indeed, Officer Gonzalez said that during the assault, he felt like he had suffered a “serious injury” and perhaps even broken his leg. Nov. 20, 2023 Trial Tr. at 58. Another officer who was standing alongside this officer, Officer Marc D’Avignon, thought he was going to die. Nov. 20, 2023 Trial Tr. at 51.

As Mr. Johnatakis walked away from the Capitol, he recorded several videos in which he expressed his satisfaction with what had occurred and pride in the role he had played. He crowed that “for the first time since 1817 that Capitol was stormed” and that members of Congress were forced to evacuate. PSR ¶ 37. He boasted that the crowd was so “irate” that “we probably would have murdered a few of” the Members of Congress “had we seen exactly who they were.” PSR ¶ 37. He summed up his conduct: “I was on the front line. I was on the gate. I organized a push up to the Capitol because I felt like that is exactly what we needed.” PSR ¶ 37.

He also exclaimed that it was “1776 again,” as if he were fighting for freedom against a foreign oppressor, rather than battling his own elected, representative government. PSR ¶ 36.

As the Court has said before, “[o]n January 6, 2021, a mob of people invaded and occupied the United States Capitol, using force to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power mandated by the Constitution and our republican heritage.” Little Notes for Resentencing, 2024 WL 386718, at *3. There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence.

The Framers designed our constitutional system so that the people govern through their representatives, according to law. Decisions are the result of elections, debates, and compromise. The people, through their representatives, decide. By contrast, those who think political ends justify violent means seek to replace persuasion with intimidation, the rule of law with “might makes right.”

Violence risks begetting a vicious cycle that could threaten cherished conventions and imperil our very institutions of government. In that sense, political violence rots republics. Therefore, January 6 must not become a precedent for further violence against political opponents or governmental institutions. This is not normal. This cannot become normal. We as a community, we as a society, we as a country cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 Capitol riot.

Source: Open Thread | Judge Sentences a January 6th Defendant. Bravo, to Putting Pen to Paper As to Why. | 3CHICSPOLITICO