A New York man accused of assaulting a police officer during the Jan. 6 riot and took his badge, buried it in his backyard, court documents say.
Thomas Sibick assaulted D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone when he ripped his badge and radio off his uniform during the assault on the west front steps of the US capitol on Jan. 6.
Fanone was dragged from the police line into the crowd of Trump supporters where he was tased and beaten to the point where he lost consciousness and was hospitalized.
“It was brutal, just beaten, struck with a variety of different objects,” Fanone said of the assault in a January interview. He said he was tasered “probably about a dozen times.”
Fanone said he yelled “I have kids” when the crowd started chanting “kill him with his gun” that’s when some of the rioters circled him and kept him safe until his partner came to his rescue.
According to court documents, Sibick claims he was one of the rioters who attempted to pull Fanone to safety but ended up ripping the badge off and only grabbed his radio so he could press the “emergency orange button” to get the officer help.
He initially told the FBI that he threw away the badge and the radio in a dumpster on Constitution Avenue because he was afraid he’d be arrested if he turned them in. He then recanted that statement, this time telling the FBI he disposed of the items in a hotel dumpster upon his return New York.
When he was told that the FBI would be reviewing security footage from the hotel to confirm his story, he finally admitted that he buried the officer’s badge in his backyard. He later hand them over to the FBI in a Ziploc bag.
Sibick was arrested on Friday and charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, obstruction of law enforcement, and taking from a person anything of value by force, among other charges, CBS news reports.
He was released into home confinement by a judge in New York, but the Justice Department has filed for an emergency appeal of the decision.
