Nathaniel Tuck, circled in yellow on the right, appears with members of the Proud Boys on the lawn of the Capitol. (U.S. Attorney’s Office)
A former cop and member of the Proud Boys from Florida was sentenced for being among the first wave of rioters to breach Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
A U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, appointed by Donald Trump, sentenced Nathaniel Tuck, aged 32, to 14 months in prison. This equates to just over a year behind bars. Tuck had pleaded guilty in September to obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder, a felony charge, and trespassing, a misdemeanor.
Tuck, a member of the “Space Coast” chapter of the Proud Boys, traveled to Washington, D.C., with his father and fellow Proud Boys. Prosecutors revealed that Tuck had meticulously planned and coordinated with others for weeks leading up to the riot at the Capitol. He actively participated in breaching the Capitol alongside his associates, resisting police attempts to control the chaos, and deliberately disrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power, marking a historic event in the U.S.
Reports indicated that Tuck and his group were among the initial wave of rioters to breach the Capitol grounds at 12:53 p.m. Subsequently, they forcibly entered the Capitol building at around 2:18 p.m., engaging physically with at least one police officer. Once inside, Tuck and his cohorts engaged in taunting law enforcement, with Tuck even making remarks about the absence of stimulus checks during the tumultuous event.
He remained inside the Capitol for approximately 54 minutes before exiting at 3:12 p.m. After leaving, he reunited with other Proud Boys for a celebratory photograph on Capitol grounds.
Later that day, in a text conversation with family, Tuck said he “Fought the police.”
After Jan. 6, as the feds began charging members of his group, Nathaniel Tuck said in text messages to his father that he thought the FBI was “overcharging” Proud Boys.
“We may lose this battle but we will win the war,” his father told him, according to court documents. “We will be able to sue after.”
Tuck responded, in part, by saying, “Politics won’t save us. Violence is the only way we will win.”
In a sentencing memo asking for 36 months probation, Tuck’s lawyer William L. Shipley said his client, a married father of a young child, was not violent that day.
“He primarily remained a singular member of a much larger group of individuals, and mostly observed the conduct of others,” Shipley wrote. “The fact that he had been with some individuals who were among that group through the course of the morning is not a basis to hold Mr. Tuck accountable for what happened due to the conduct of others over whom he had no control.”
In their sentencing memo asking for 24 months imprisonment, prosecutors said Tuck is a former cop. From 2012 to 2020, he was a police officer, first with the Longwood Police Department in Longwood, Florida, and then with the Apopka Police Department in Apopka, Florida.
He told the U.S. Probation Office he quit his police job in October 2020 “because of the whole George Floyd thing,” referring to the Black man who was killed in Minnesota on May 25, 2020, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minnesota police officer convicted of murder after being seen on cellphone video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd lay facedown in handcuffs.
A police spokesperson said Tuck resigned from the department before the Capitol Riot to pursue a job in another field.
In the 43 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,488 people have been charged for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol.
Law&Crime has previously covered the story of one of Tuck’s codefendants, Arthur Jackman. Jackman was seen in photos and video on Jan. 6 that showed him stalking the Capitol’s hallways briefly with Proud Boys member Joseph Biggs, the former Infowars contributor who was tapped by Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio play a major role inside the extremist group — and then was convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside him.
Tarrio has received the longest sentence so far of any Jan. 6 defendant — 22 years.
