LOCUST GROVE, Ga. — A Georgia business owner who bragged that he “fed” a police officer to a mob of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his repeated attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection.
Jack Wade Whitton, 34, of Locust Grove, struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace.
Whitton later boasted in a text message that he “fed him to the people.”
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Whitton was arrested just a few months after the riot in April 2021 and charged with civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and acts of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.
He also walked up to a line of officers and kicked them and hit a riot shield. He returned to them a few moments later and shouted, “You’re gonna die tonight.”
Whitton, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge last year, told the judge that he has never been a “political person.”
“I’ve never been a troublemaker. I’ve always been a hard worker and a law-abiding citizen,” he said.
The judge in the case, however, disagreed, describing the videos of Whitton attacking police as “gruesome.”
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“You really were out of control,” the judge told him.
Videos show that contemporaneous attacks on police by Whitton and a co-defendant, Justin Jersey, “ignited the rageful onslaught of violence that followed” on the Lower West Terrace, prosecutors said.
The claims made by Whitton, however, did not go over well with the judge as evidence of his actions showed otherwise.
The evening after the Jan. 6 attack, Whitton texted somebody images of his bloodied hands.
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“This is from a bad cop,” Whitton wrote. “Yea I fed him to the people. (I don’t know) his status. And don’t care (to be honest).”
More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 850 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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