Juries aren’t swayed by defenses in Capitol riot trials

WASHINGTON — A retired New York police officer told a jury that he was acting in self-defense when he tackled a police officer and grabbed his gas mask during the Jan. 6 riot.

Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before convicting the 20-year NYPD veteran, Thomas Webster, of all six counts in his indictment.

Webster was the first Jan. 6 defendant to be tried on an assault charge and the first to present a jury with a self-defense argument. His conviction proved to be a bellwether for the dozens of trials that followed.

Finding a viable trial defense hasn’t been easy for rioters who stormed the Capitol. Of the nearly 100 riot defendants who have elected to a trial by jury, none has been fully acquitted.

Many have said they were swept up in the moment. Some have tried to shift the blame for their actions to former President Donald Trump and his lies about a stolen election. Others have claimed they were trying to protect themselves from overzealous police officers.

In Webster’s case, prosecutors repeatedly showed frame-by-frame footage of him assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer with a metal flagpole, tackling him to the ground and trying to rip off his gas mask.

Webster testified he was trying to protect himself from a “rogue cop” who punched him in the face. A juror who spoke to reporters after the May 2022 verdict said the videos refuted Webster’s self-defense claims.

“I guess we were all surprised that he would even make that defense argument,” the juror said. “There was no dissension among us at all. We unanimously agreed that there was no self-defense argument here at all.”

Before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced him to 10 years in prison, Webster apologized to the officer. He said he wished he had never come to Washington, where he says he “became swept up in politics and former President Trump’s rhetoric.”

“I wish the events of that horrible day had never happened. People would still be alive, people would not have gotten hurt, and families would not have been thrown apart. Perhaps our country would not be as divided as it is today,” Webster said.