Indiana man pleads guilty to assaulting police with baton and makeshift weapons during Capitol riot

WASHINGTON — An Indiana man pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges that he used a metal baton, a lamp and other makeshift weapons to assault police officers who were protecting the U.S. Capitol from a mob of Donald Trump supporters.

Curtis Logan Tate, 32, struck at least two officers with the baton that he brought to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, hitting one in the hand and the other repeatedly on the helmet.

Tate also threw a broken table leg, a floor lamp, a speaker box and a shoe at officers guarding a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. He struck a third officer’s arm and damaged a window when he threw the speaker box.

Tate pleaded guilty to three felony counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding police using a deadly or dangerous weapon, court records show.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to sentence Tate on July 9. Sentencing guidelines call for Tate to receive a term of imprisonment ranging from five years and three months to six years and six months, although the judge isn’t bound by that recommendation.

Tate lived in Jeffersonville, Indiana — near Louisville, Kentucky — when he and a friend traveled to Washington to attend then-President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6. He posted several videos on Instagram as he stormed the Capitol with other rioters.

Tate was arrested in August 2023 in Wilmington, North Carolina. A federal magistrate judge ordered him to remain jailed until his case is resolved.

In March 2023, USA Today interviewed Tate for a story about Capitol rioters who had been identified by online sleuths but not yet arrested. Tate acknowledged that he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but he denied assaulting anyone.

“I would never hurt an officer. I come from a military background, I’m very respectful of our military and police,” he told the newspaper.

A defense attorney who represented Tate at Thursday’s hearing didn’t immediately respond to an email and telephone call seeking comment.

More than 1,300 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 750 of them have pleaded guilty. Nearly 200 more have been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury. More than 800 have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Also on Thursday, FBI agents arrested an Indiana man and an Illinois man on Jan. 6-related felony charges.

David Scott Kuntz, 53, of Elizabeth, Indiana, is charged with obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Kuntz told FBI agents that he is an adherent of the “Three Percenters” militia movement and belongs to a militia group called the Grey Ghost Partisan Kentucky Rangers.

Lance Michael Ligocki, 34, of Oakwood, Illinois, is charged with attacking police with a flagpole attached to a “Trump” flag while wearing American flag-themed pants, jacket and baseball cap.

Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press