A man who dragged a police officer into the crowd that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Albuquerque Cosper Head, from Tennessee, pleaded guilty in March to assaulting the officer, Michael Fanone.

Head admitted he grabbed Fanone around the neck and announced to the mob, “I got one!”

Once surrounded by rioters, Fanone was beaten, kicked and attacked with a stun gun. Some rioters threatened to kill him with his own gun.

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Before announcing the sentence, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Head was responsible for “some of the darkest acts committed on one of our nation’s darkest days.”

“[Fanone] was protecting the very essence of democracy, the peaceful transfer of power after a democratic election,” Judge Jackson said. “He was protecting America.”

The sentence handed down is slightly less than the eight years in prison prosecutors had requested.

The penalty is one of the most severe so far in the investigation conducted by the Justice Department.

In September, Thomas Webster, a retired New York City police officer who swung a flagpole at a police officer, was sentenced to ten years in jail.

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