Man who pinned officer to Capitol tunnel door sentenced to 7 years

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A rioter who pinned a D.C. officer to a doorway in a mob attack on police trying to defend a tunnel entrance during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday, after a judge called him “a poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling about that day’s” violence.

Patrick McCaughey, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, committed the “most egregious” attacks on police out of three men found guilty at a bench trial in September of assaulting and impeding police at the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace on the day Congress met to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden said.

After pushing through bike racks and taunting and chasing officers up steps, McCaughey used a stolen riot shield to pin D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges to a metal door frame in a tunnel that was a chokepoint for rioters trying to enter the building. McCaughey used his weight and the weight of the mob behind him to crush Hodges, while another man beat him with a baton.

McFadden credited McCaughey for a “moment of humanity,” warning officers that Hodges needed help and was adjusting his gas mask. But the judge said McCaughey later reentered the tunnel and attacked another officer with a shield, then repeatedly minimized his conduct at trial.

“You are remorseful and I don’t need to be concerned about you doing something like this again,” the judge said. But he cited the “strong need” to deter others and promote respect for the law, while adding that he was reducing McCaughey’s punishment because of his youth – he is 25 – and statements of support from friends, colleagues and clients that showed his offense was a “strange aberration.”

In a victim impact statement, Hodges called McCaughey the “vanguard” of an attack that has had long-lasting effects, saying it would inspire the nation’s enemies at home and abroad for years. Hodges also said it has caused 50 officers to retire or leave the D.C. police force. (U.S. Capitol Police have reported greater attrition.)

That’s “50 officers that can no longer protect the city, and 50 officers that won’t be there the next time a would-be dictator decides to try his luck against the United States,” Hodges said, referring to Donald Trump, who has said he would pardon all Jan. 6 criminal defendants. Hodges also faulted defendants’ “shameless” claims that they got “caught up in the moment,” saying “of all the weapons that day, the most effective one was the mob: Every single person present made it incalculably more difficult to repel the violent, tend to the wounded, and protect democracy.”

Federal prosecutors sought a 188-month prison term – the second-longest sought so far in a Jan. 6 case – with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall citing statements by another officer who said had rioters broken through, there would have been more hurt and killed.

Defense attorney Dennis E. Boyle, who initially argued for a one-year prison term, argued that a lengthy sentence “wreaks of vengeance. It does not wreak of justice.” He blamed McCaughey’s father for putting “poison” into his son’s head. He also blamed major networks, commentators, Republican lawmakers and “even the President of the United States, who said over and over again the election was stolen by the worst vote fraud in history.”

“Too many foolish people believed the lies they were told and acted impetuously,” Boyle said.

McCaughey, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, accepted responsibility and apologized to his mother, sisters, country and police, saying he shamed his family and harmed his nation by not demonstrating peacefully, but instead acting “like a thug” and “animal,” and “giving into mob violence.”

“I’m sorry for my role in the riot, and making a nation already [divided] that much more charged and less civil,” McCaughey said. He said he realized that telling or taunting officers to “go home” was an insult to their integrity and their sworn duty to protect the Capitol and its occupants.

“I am sorry I acted less like a citizen and more like an animal that day,” McCaughey said, adding he hoped one day to become a welder and start a family.

Asked his reaction, Hodges said after the sentencing hearing, “It depends on what McCaughey does after 91 months. We’ll see if he’s a changed man.”