“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” said U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan.
Robert Palmer, 54, of Tampa, was charged with repeatedly assaulting police officers on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Prosecutors said he threw a wooden plank the police, then picked up a fire extinguisher and sprayed its contents at a line of officers, throwing the canister at them after it was empty.
A few minutes later, prosecutors said, he picked up the fire extinguisher and threw it at them a second time and assaulted another group of officers with a metal pole, throwing it like a spear. He stopped the attack when an officer shot him in the abdomen with a rubber bullet.
Palmer now says he has seen the light.
A supporter of former President Donald Trump who attacked police officers with a fire extinguisher during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 told a judge that he now realizes that the former president and those acting on his behalf were lying when they claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
