US Capitol rioter gets 5 years in jail after throwing fire extinguisher at police

(CNN) A Florida man who enthusiastically attacked police at the US Capitol on January 6 with a fire extinguisher, a wooden plank and a pole was sentenced to more than five years in prison on Friday, the longest sentence for a Capitol rioter thus far.

Robert Scott Palmer at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Robert Scott Palmer is the first person to be sentenced for the felony of assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon. His 63-month sentence could set a benchmark for the more than 140 others who face the same charge.

"Every day we are hearing about reports of antidemocratic factions, people plotting potential violence in 2024," District Judge Tanya Chutkan said as she handed down the sentence. "It has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulting law enforcement, is going to be met with certain punishment. Not staying at home, not watching Netflix, not doing what you were doing before you got arrested."

Palmer was first publicly identified by online sleuths, who tracked him down through pictures and video of Palmer in an American flag jacket brawling outside the Capitol. According to his plea agreement, Palmer sprayed a fire extinguisher at a line of police and twice threw the empty canister. When he refused to back down, Palmer was shot in the stomach with a rubber bullet.

"I wonder if the people who are usually before me," Chutkan said of Black and minority defendants she presides over, "if they had tried to storm the Capitol that day, would they have been met with rubber bullets. I suspect not."