Capitol rioter pleads guilty to attacking officers with stolen police baton

WASHINGTON (CN) — A former member of a Michigan militia group who stole a police baton and assaulted officers with it during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon on Tuesday.

Matthew Krol, 65, took the plea deal in federal court to avoid six other charges for robbery, civil disorder, assaulting officers and entering and engaging in physical violence in the Capitol with a dangerous weapon.

According to the Justice Department’s statement of facts outlining Krol’s actions at the Capitol, the Michigan man was part of the mob of rioters outside the east steps of the building, where hundreds of people overran police barricades and clashed with officers in riot gear.

Police body-cam footage included in the charging documents shows Krol at the front of the crowd, throwing a water bottle at officers and grabbing at their batons, eventually wresting one from an officer, referred to by his initials, D.P.

After taking the baton, Krol can be seen holding it up in apparent celebration as he returns to the crowd. He then used it to assault at least two different Metropolitan Police Department officers, according to prosecutors.

The Justice Department’s charging documents also identified Krol as a former commander in the Genesee County Volunteer Militia, an anti-government group that drew media attention during protests over the Flint water crisis in 2016 by handing out free bottled water and water filters.

The militia’s website has a pinned statement distancing themselves from Krol, saying that he left the organization when he stepped down from his role as executive officer to run unsuccessfully for Genesee County Sheriff in 2017.

More than 1,100 people have been charged in connection to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — including former president Donald Trump, who was recently charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election and encouraging his supporters to stop the election certification — in the 31 months since that day.

Trump pleaded not guilty on Aug. 3 in the same courthouse in Washington, just down the street from the Capitol itself, to four charges for conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy against the right to vote and have one’s vote counted and obstruction of an official proceeding.

At least 632 other defendants have pleaded guilty to charges, 86 of whom pleaded guilty to assaulting officers, a group Krol is now a part of.

While Krol faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, it is unlikely that he will receive such a high sentence.

The longest sentence any Jan. 6 defendant received was 18 years for Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of the rare seditious conspiracy charge for his plans to start a “bloody revolution.” The plan included bringing weapons to motels just outside of Washington so that other Oath Keepers could quickly bring them into the city if called upon.

Last month, the Justice Department appealed the sentences of Rhodes and his lieutenants, a sign that prosecutors view their ordered prison time as too light. The feds have also appealed the sentences of several other Jan. 6 defendants not affiliated with the Oath Keepers, including Kyle Fitzsimons, who was sentenced by the same judge presiding over Krol’s case, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras.

On July 13, the Obama appointee sentenced Fitzsimons, who assaulted multiple officers in the Lower West Terrace tunnel while dressed in butcher garb, to seven years in prison. Fitzsimons, however, did not enter a plea deal and was convicted of 11 charges for what Contreras called an “orgy of assaultive rage.”

Many Jan. 6 defendants have received credit for taking responsibility for their actions by entering plea agreements, which may factor into Krol’s sentencing hearing, currently scheduled for Dec. 15.

In the two and a half years since the Capitol riot, the Justice Department has sentenced at least 597 people. The investigation is ongoing, with about 321 people who assaulted officers still unidentified.

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