Maryland Man Pleads Guilty to Socking Cops at Jan. 6 Riot

A Maryland man has copped to assaulting police during the chaotic Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Steven Patrick Cook, 24, of Bethesda, faced his reckoning in D.C. federal court, pleading guilty to two felony counts of putting the strong arm on officers. The courthouse drama means Cook could now be looking at serious time when sentenced on July 19, as reported on March 21st by the Justice Department.

Court docs lay out a story of Cook, who among a mob, forced a breach at the Capitol's west side by 2:28 p.m. During the mayhem, Cook went head-to-head, quite literally, with law enforcement. Court records lay bare how Cook attempted to violently break through police lines, even snagging a gas mask from another rioter to continue his assault in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel—a front line of the day’s violence. "Cook pushed between and against police officers to further break the line and repeatedly grabbed at police officers’ batons and swung his closed fist at their heads," according to details from court filings obtained by the Justice Department.

With the FBI hot on his tail, Cook was nabbed on September 16, 2023, in his home state. He's just one of the over 1,358 individuals snagged by authorities since the infamous breach, with north of 486 charged for throwing blows at the cops. The Department of Justice and the FBI's Baltimore and Washington offices leading the charge.

Cook worked through the mob to lead charges against the officers in the Tunnel, according to the affidavit. At 3:05 p.m., Cook left the Tunnel only to return a short while later where he and other rioters pushed against a line of police officers, said the Justice Department. His charge at the police in an attempt to quickly break their line is etched into the court record as an act of defiance against the very symbol of American democracy.

As the justice wheels grind on, the country watches, waiting to see how Judge Trevor N. McFadden will call it come July. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, together with the DOJ's Counterterrorism Section, are prosecuting Cook's case, while the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland and law enforcement agencies continue to untangle the complex web spun that January day over three years ago.