More convictions are being handed down to participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection. This week one man who proudly waved the Confederate flag as he ravaged the U.S. Capitol building and chased down a Black officer with the symbol of racial violence was sentenced to three years behind bars for his actions on that day in 2021.
Kevin Seefried, a 53-year-old Delaware native, and his son, Hunter Seefried, 24, breached the building that afternoon with thousands of others, many of whom had attended a rally at a park across from the White House before marching on the Capitol.
Seefried and his son were angry that President Donald Trump — who spoke at the rally that day — lost the 2020 presidential election. They joined a movement organized mostly online called “Stop the Steal,” with the objective to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden’s election from being certified by Congress.
“Stop the Steal” was motivated by the erroneous belief that the Biden-Harris ticket won because of voter fraud, a news release from the Justice Department stated.
According to the prosecution, the father confronted U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman with aggression and violence.
Goodman, the officer who was seen in videos directing a crowd of rioters away from the chamber where the Senate was secured, has also been heralded as the person who saved the lives of tens of elected officials and their staff members on that day with his brave actions.
Still, he understood the danger he and the rest of the people around him were in.
“Kudos to everyone there that showed a measure of restraint in regards to deadly force, because it could have been bad,” Goodman in a January 2022 interview on the podcast “3 Brothers No Sense” as he described how law enforcement officers generally refrained using their weapons that day.
The government’s sentencing memo said, “Seefried was the first rioter to encounter USCP Officer Eugene Goodman in a doorway…
Read the full article here
