A Houston man faced justice for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol breach, where he was convicted for assaulting law enforcement with dangerous weapons during the chaos that unfolded that day; Andrew Taake was handed a 74-month prison sentence yesterday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
A U.S. District Judge, Carl J. Nichols, has sentenced Taake, 35, who is also on the hook for a child-solicitation case still-pending in Texas, to additionally undergo 36 months of supervised release and pay $2,000 in restitution for the Capitol riot offenses, after his Dec. 20, 2023, guilty plea to a count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers utilizing a dangerous weapon, he came to Washington D.C. equipped with bear spray and a metal whip and was among the frontrunners who breached the Capitol.
The official record provided by the DOJ indicates that Taake made multiple aggressive moves on that fateful day, including spraying law enforcement officers with bear spray and using a metal whip, actions which were seen as a direct attack on the guardians of democracy at the United welcome mat.
His spree of violence began on the West Plaza and escalated as more police tried to regain control over the area; at one point, Taake trapped and assaulted officers on the northwest side of the Capitol grounds, he attacked an MPD officer with his whip which was caught on police body-worn cameras, and after venturing inside the Capitol for approximately 20 minutes, he exited and later bragged about his actions on a dating app, which ultimately led to his arrest after the tip-off to the FBI.
The investigation, led by the FBI's Houston and Washington Field Offices, with the help of U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department, has seen over 1,424 individuals charged in nearly all 50 states for their crimes related to the Capitol breach, as of the DOJ's last update; over 500 of these individuals have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, with the DOJ pledging that investigations are to continue.
