‘A lamb to Trump’s lion,’ butcher from Capitol riot wants out of jail

WASHINGTON (CN) — A man who assaulted police during the Capitol riot in his butcher's coat asked to be released from jail on Thursday, arguing that any violence on his part was stoked by elected officials making a fever pitch that the presidential election had been stolen. 

"He was swept up in the large crowd and behaved in a manner that was completely foreign to his actions before or after January 6th,” Natasha Taylor Smith wrote in her motion to revoke the detention of Kyle Fitzsimons. 

Fitzsimons, a 37-year-old former Marine from Lebanon, Maine, drove down to Washington to attend then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” event on Jan. 6. After the rally, he went to his car, changed into a white coat from his job as a freelance butcher and headed to the Capitol with an unstrung bow. 

Letting video from the riot speak for itself, prosecutors played a slideshow in court on Thursday to show how Fitzsimons grabbed the shoulder of a U.S. Capitol Police sergeant and tried to pull him into the crowd. The sergeant repeatedly struck Fitzsimons with a baton to get free of his grip, creating a gash on Fitzsimons' forehead.

The government followed that video with another that captured Fitzsimons lowering his shoulder before charging into a line of officers. 

Fitzsimons also assaulted a Metropolitan Police officer by pulling his gas mask to the side so another rioter could pepper-spray him. 

“He was flailing his arms attempting to strike as many officers as possible,” Justice Department attorney Brandon Regan told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. “The suggestion that he is doing anything other than assaulting the officers should be dismissed by the court.”

Fitzsimons went home after the riot, calling in to a Lebanon town meeting the next day in which he spent 15 minutes talking about his experience, including his belief that “Trump is a lion leading an army of lambs through lawfare.”

“He has shown no remorse and has even doubled down on the rhetoric of that day,” Regan said. 

Fitzsimons has a history of calling his congressional representatives about election fraud and impeachment, and prosecutors said they hear the same rhetoric that he used in his previous calls — which led to his participation in the Jan. 6 riot— in calls he has made from jail. 

“I need to get bailed out and rally the troops,” Fitzsimons said on one phone call that prosecutors played for Contreras on Thursday. 

The defense insists, however, that Fitzsimons was moved by Trump's call for his supporters to travel to Washington. Smith said his client was inundated with comments from local, state and federal elected officials that Democrats usurped the election process. 

"He is a lone individual who was persuaded by the rhetoric of then-President Trump and the Republican party and was led to believe that the 2020 election was stolen,” Smith said in her filing. “Mr Fitzsimons believed voter fraud occurred, which ultimately led to his arrest in this instant matter.”

In a phone call from jail, Fitzsimons told his mother, “I did exactly what was asked of me.”

“I know you feel a very strong moral obligation and duty,” his mother replied, advising him that he wouldn’t be able to change anyone’s mind and shouldn’t try. 

“To be fair, she does posit some good ideas for the defendant to stay out of trouble,” Regan said after playing the voicemail. 

Fitzsimons’ mother has offered to let her son stay with her in Florida, and has even had a landline installed so that he could be placed on location monitoring if he was ordered to do so. She has offered to help her son find a job as well. 

Smith made little headway, however, with her argument that Fitzsimons didn’t coordinate with other participants, has no social media and was just wrapped up in a unique situation. 

“Given that fences are going up again, it’s unclear how unique it is,” Contreras responded, referencing the preparation by the U.S. Capitol Police force for another rally at the Capitol on Sept. 18 in support of the Jan. 6 defendants. “I hope it’s unique.”

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