Rioter Who Told Mob Democrats 'Need to Hang' Gets 20 Years

David Dempsey pleaded guilty in assaults on officers
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2024 5:05 PM CDT
Rioter Who Told Mob Democrats 'Need to Hang' Gets 20 Years
An image of a mock gallows on the grounds of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is shown as House committee members hold a hearing on June 9, 2022.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

A Donald Trump supporter who stood in front of a gallows set up near the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and named Democratic politicians he said "need to hang" was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Friday. Prosecutors said David Dempsey viciously attacked law enforcement officers at the lower west tunnel of the Capitol, NBC News reports. "Dempsey was one of the most violent rioters, during one of the most violent stretches of time, at the scene of the most violent confrontations at the Capitol," prosecutors wrote.

Only Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy, has received a longer sentence in the riot prosecutions—22 years. Dempsey showed up on Jan. 6 wearing a bulletproof vest, a helmet, and a gaiter to obscure most of his face, per the Washington Post. "You didn't make a split-second decision to use violence," Senior US District Judge Royce Lamberth told him. Although Dempsey attacked multiple officers, he pleaded guilty in connection with the assaults on Washington Police Detective Phuson Nguyen and Washington Police Sgt. Jason Mastony. Dempsey hit Nguyen with "a torrent of pepper spray" after another rioter compromised the detective's mask.

Mastony was hit so hard with a metal crutch that he collapsed in a daze; the sergeant received a gash in his head, prosecutors wrote. It's not clear if Dempsey inflicted the injuries, though video showed him hitting Mastony with a crutch. Dempsey pleaded guilty in January to two counts of assaulting police with dangerous or deadly weapons. An online fundraiser started by his family has has raised more than $20,000. The appeal says Dempsey "is being politically silenced for his beliefs in the Constitution." He's been accused of political violence before, including using bear spray against anti-Trump protesters in 2020, which resulted in a two-year suspended sentence,. (More Capitol riot stories.)

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