Man who assaulted officers with hockey stick on Jan. 6 sentenced to prison

A Michigan man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers with a hockey stick during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Michael Joseph Foy, 32, to 40 months in prison and two years of supervised release for actions he took during the Capitol attack. He was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers for those actions last year in a stipulated bench trial.

Court documents show Foy traveled from Wixom, Mich., to the nation’s capital to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally, according to a press release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. He attended wearing an American flag around his shoulders and carried a “Trump 2020” flag that was attached to a hockey stick.

The press release stated Foy pushed his way through a mob of protesters to the entrance of the Lower West Terrace tunnel of the Capitol building, where he picked up a sharp metal pole and “threw it over the head of rioters into the body of a police officer.”

The pole knocked the officer into the archway and Foy proceeded to use his hockey stick to attack the police, according to the release. Video footage showed Foy swinging his hockey stick and hitting officers at least 11 times within 16 seconds, including an officer who was already injured on the ground and another who was knocked backward.

Court documents say that Foy swung his hockey stick over his head and downward at police officers as if he were chopping wood with an ax. Body-worn camera, taken from a police officer prone on the ground, shows Foy swinging down onto the officer’s exposed body. Court documents say Foy attacked an officer in the face, head, neck, and body area, and not in self-defense.

The press release said he shouted “let’s go” to other rioters after assaulting multiple officers with the hockey stick. He then proceeded to climb through the shattered window, bringing his hockey stick with him.

The attorney’s office noted that more than 1,313 individuals have been charged with crimes related to the riot at the Capitol since Jan. 6, 2021.