A former Westminster man who participated in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol admitted Monday, March 20, to assaulting a police officer while in the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel.
Kevin Louis Galetto, now a resident of Merritt Island, Fla., pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., to a felony count of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers.
Around 2:40 pm on Jan. 6, 2021, Galetto, 63, was among a large group of people entering the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance when the crowd was met by police denying them entrance to the Capitol building, according to a U.S. Justice Department statement.
Members of the group denied entrance then began to act violently towards officers.
Body worn camera footage from a Metropolitan Police officer captured Galetto at the entrance to the tunnel pressing up against the officers’ shields, prosecutors said. Galetto then got into a scuffle with the officer, who was knocked to the ground.
Soon after the fight, Galetto left the tunnel entrance and began shouting “More people!,” encouraging other rioters to join him at the tunnel.
See also: List: These Southern California residents are accused of taking part in the Capitol riot
He stayed by the tunnel for nearly two hours and was part of one of the last pushes against officers in the late afternoon, according to the statement.
Galetto texted a contact on his cell phone later that night, saying that the politicians “need to be overthrown,” and that former Vice President Mike Pence “is a trader [sic].”
Galetto was arrested at his former Westminster home on April 23, 2021 after he was identified by Customs and Border Patrol officials using facial comparisons between images in the agency’s system and photos and video taken on Jan. 6.
In the two years since the Jan. 6 riot, more than 1,000 individuals have been arrested across the country for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol. More than 320 of those arrests…
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