Kyle Young participated in the insurrection of January 6, 2021, and brought his 16-year-old son. For his role in beating a police officer, he was sententeced to prison for seven years and two months. He was justly punished for brutalizing Officer Michael Fanone and attempting to overthrow the government. Anyone who calls these insurrectionists “patriots” or “political prisoners” dishonors the Constitution.

A member of the mob that launched a series of violent attacks on police — including D.C. officer Michael Fanone — in a tunnel under the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, apologized Tuesday as a judge sentenced him to seven years and two months in prison.


Kyle Young, 38, is the first rioter to be sentenced for the group attack on Fanone, who was dragged into the mob, beaten and electrocuted until he suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness.


“You were a one-man wrecking ball that day,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson said. “You were the violence.”


Fanone resigned from the D.C. police late last year, saying fellow officers turned on him for speaking so publicly about the Capitol attack and former president Donald Trump’s role in it. In court Tuesday, Fanone directly confronted his attacker, telling Young, “I hope you suffer.”


“The assault on me by Mr. Young cost me my career,” Fanone said. “It cost me my faith in law enforcement and many of the institutions I dedicated two decades of my life to serving.”

Young pleaded guilty last May.

Young and his 16-year-old son joined the tunnel battle just before 3 p.m., and Young handed a stun gun to another rioter and showed him how to use it. When Fanone was pulled from the police line, Young and his son pushed through the crowd toward him.


Just after that, authorities said, another rioter repeatedly shocked Fanone with the stun gun, and Young helped restrain the officer as another rioter stole his badge and radio.

Young lost his grip on Fanone as the mob moved. He then pushed and hit a nearby Capitol Police officer, who had just been struck with bear spray, according to documents filed with his plea.


Young also pointed a strobe light at the officers, jabbed at them with a stick and threw an audio speaker toward the police line, hitting another rioter in the back of the head, prosecutors said.
In a letter to the court, Young said he cried on the phone with his wife as he left D.C.


“I was a nervous wreck and highly ashamed of myself,” he wrote. “I do not condone this and do not promote this like others have done. Violence isn’t the answer.”


In court, he apologized to Fanone, saying, “I hope someday you forgive me. … I am so, so sorry. If I could take it back, I would.”

Young has a long criminal history.