Georgia Man Sentenced for Assaulting Cops with Crutch

A Georgia man was sentenced to prison today for assaulting law enforcement officers with a weapon during the January 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Jack Wade Whitton, 33, of Locust Grove, Georgia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to 57 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution. Whitton pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon on Sept. 13, 2022.

According to court documents, on Jan. 6, 2021, many of the most violent confrontations that day occurred near an entrance to the Capitol building in the area known as the Lower West Terrace. The entrance usually consists of a flight of stairs leading to a doorway; however, on January 6th, the construction of the Inaugural Stage converted the stairway into a 10-foot-wide, slightly sloped, short Tunnel approximately 15 feet long.

At approximately 4:27 p.m., police officers had been defending the Tunnel for nearly two hours, advancing and retreating as they struggled against a crowd of rioters. As some rioters exited the Tunnel and made their way down a set of steps, Whitton worked his way through (and against) the crowd to get closer to the police line.

As Whitton approached the police line, he pulled a metal crutch from the crowd, raised it overhead, and thrust it repeatedly at police, striking law enforcement officers. While Whitton was attacking the line of officers with the crutch, another rioter – co-defendant Justin Jersey – knocked an officer to the ground. Still wielding the crutch, Whitton climbed over a fence at the top of the stairs.

Whitton then grabbed an officer’s baton and, in his own words, “fed him to the people” by dragging the officer head-first and face-down into the violent, angry mob of rioters, where the officer was beaten. The mob then proceeded to attack the downed officer with objects, including a police baton and flagpole.

Approximately 20 minutes later, at 4:48 p.m., Whitton returned to the Archway. Police officers continued to maintain a line across the Tunnel entrance; many held riot shields. Whitton approached the line of officers, gave them the finger, and kicked at them. Another rioter, who was standing between Whitton and the police line, yelled at him and others to stop. Instead, Whitton ran back to the line of officers, kicked at them, struck a riot shield held by an officer, and shouted, “You’re gonna die tonight!”

In the days that followed the events of January 6, Whitton texted and posted on social media about his conduct at the Capitol that day, expressing pride in his participation in assaults and unconcern for his victims. In one text exchange sent on the evening of January 6th, Whitton informed an associate that he “didn’t actually get in the building but everything else I was in the middle of.” He then sent images of his bloodied hands, stating, “This is from a bad punch.”

Whitton scaled the wall between the Lower West Terrace and the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol building, where bleachers had been set up for the Inauguration and where police officers were attempting to clear rioters. Here, Whitton threw an object at the line of officers, then reached over the balustrade to throw a punch at them.