An Arkansas man who beat a police officer with a flagpole during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault at the Capitol was sentenced to 52 months in federal prison on Monday.
The Justice Department said Peter Stager, a 44-year-old truck driver, was in Washington, D.C., after delivering produce to a nearby area and decided to attend the pro-Trump rally near the Capitol. As the crowd surged toward the halls of Congress, Stager became part of a “large, armed mob” as rioters fought their way into an entrance at the Lower West Terrace of the building.
Prosecutors said Stager watched as other rioters attacked a police line and dragged Officer Blake Miller into the crowd. Once the officer was on the ground, Stager raised the flagpole he was carrying and beat Miller with the implement at least three times.
“Stager stood over the officer and yelled, ‘Fuck you! Fucking traitor!’” the Justice Department said in a release announcing the sentencing. “Later in the day, Stager was filmed pointing at the Capitol building and stating, ‘Everybody in there is a disgrace. That entire building is filled with treasonous traitors. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.’”
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File
Stager was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021, shortly after the insurrection. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon.
His attorneys said in court filings the man was “seeing red” when he picked up the flagpole, which had an American flag attached to it. Stager apologized to the officer for his actions in a letter before his sentencing, saying he didn’t have any “hatred toward law enforcement.”
“Once the adrenaline wore off, Mr. Stager immediately called his wife to tell her he was horrified by his actions and that he was going to turn himself in upon returning to Arkansas,” the lawyers wrote in the filing, per The Associated Press.
Nine men were charged with assaulting Miller and two other officers near that entrance of the Capitol. More than 1,000 people have been arrested for their role in the insurrection.