Higher sentences for insurrectionists who assaulted police

A judge in the United States has imposed a 44-month prison sentence on a man who pleaded guilty to a felony charge after throwing objects at police during last year’s January 6 attack on the US Capitol and boasting about his actions on social media.

The defendant, Nicholas Languerand, has been jailed since his arrest in April 2021 in the US state of South Carolina and will receive credit for time served.

Languerand pleaded guilty in November to a single charge of assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous weapon. Authorities said he hurled objects, including an orange traffic barrier, at police and took an officer’s riot shield on January 6, 2021. He was 26 at the time he entered the guilty plea.

Languerand bragged about the attack on social media, vowing that “next time we come back with rifles”.

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Prosecutors had recommended a 51-month sentence, but US District Judge John Bates in Washington said on Wednesday that a “modest reduction” was warranted in light of Languerand’s personal circumstances, including what the judge described as an “extremely difficult and chaotic upbringing”.

When Languerand was a child, his father intentionally set fire to a trailer that he and his mother were living in, nearly killing them, Languerand’s grandfather told the judge during the sentencing hearing.

  alJazeera