Gabriel Garcia in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (via DOJ court filings).
A Proud Boys member and former Army captain from Florida has been sentenced to one year in prison for his involvement in organizing the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
The sentencing was carried out by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who also imposed a two-year probation period and ordered Gabriel Augustin Garcia, 43, to pay $2,000 in restitution. Garcia was found guilty of two felony charges related to obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding. The obstruction charge was later dropped following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States.
For more on this story, check out Law&Crime: Capitol rioter who ‘lit the match’ on Jan. 6 receives reduced prison sentence after SCOTUS invalidates commonly-used obstruction charge
According to prosecutors, Garcia was a member of the Proud Boys’ “Ministry of Self Defense” that was hand selected by leader Enrique Tarrio, the man currently spending a 22-year-prison sentence for his role in the riot. The group discussed about the potential for violence in a group text. Three days before the assault, Garcia texted “1776 flag flying over the White House last night” and then later added, “time to stack those bodies in front of Capitol Hill.”
Around 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, Garcia received a message from fellow Proud Boys that they were “storming” the Capitol. Garcia went to the Capitol and joined the mob.
As Law&Crime previously reported, prosecutors said Garcia was at “the very front of the crowd” that violently rushed a line of Capitol police on Jan. 6. Once the crowd broke through that line, Garcia recorded himself calling out for then-House Speaker Pelosi.
“Nancy, come out and play,” Garcia said loudly while inside the Rotunda, according to the complaint. Later in the video, he again calls for “Nancy” before turning the camera on himself and saying “Free Enrique,” an apparent reference to Tarrio who had been arrested days earlier for burning a Black Lives Matter flag.
Garcia, a former captain in the U.S. Army and failed 2020 candidate for local office in Florida, uploaded multiple videos to Facebook that day.
Another video is around “five and a half minutes long and depicts an aggressive confrontation with U.S. Capitol Police officers, who are trying to prevent the crowd from advancing,” the complaint says.
“We just went ahead and stormed the Capitol,” Garcia says on the video. “It’s about to get ugly.”
Garcia also yelled at police officers.
“F- you guys, you f-ing traitors,” he said. Garcia then exclaimed: “You ain’t stopping a million. You ain’t gonna hold a million back today”
Cops wound up kicking Garcia out of the building after about an hour. The FBI arrested him on Jan. 19, 2021.
Jackson placed Garcia on house arrest after he attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) without the court’s permission.
