Florida man who assaulted police in January 6 riots given five-year sentence

A Florida man described by prosecutors as one of the most violent rioters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison, court records show.

Kenneth Bonawitz, a member of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group’s Miami chapter, assaulted at least six police officers as he stormed the Capitol with a mob of Donald Trump supporters. He grabbed one of the officers in a chokehold and injured another so severely that the officer had to retire, according to federal prosecutors.

Bonawitz, 58, of Pompano Beach, Florida, carried an eight-inch knife in a sheath on his hip. Police seized the knife from him in between his barrage of attacks on officers.

“His violent, and repeated, assaults on multiple officers are among the worst attacks that occurred that day,” assistant US attorney Sean McCauley wrote in a court filing.

US district judge Jia Cobb sentenced Bonawitz to a five-year term of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release, court records show.

The US justice department recommended a prison sentence of five years and 11 months for Bonawitz, who was arrested last January. He pleaded guilty in August to three felonies – one count of civil disorder and two counts of assaulting police.

Bonawitz took an overnight bus to Washington DC on the day of the Capitol attack, chartered for Trump supporters to attend his Stop the Steal rally near the White House.

Bonawitz was among the first rioters to enter the upper west plaza once the crowd overran a police line on the north side. He jumped off a stage built for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration and tackled two Capitol police officers. One of them, Sgt Federico Ruiz, suffered serious injuries to his neck, shoulder, knees