Throwing the Booklet at Them

It's hard to take when the Right tries to make victims of the January 6 insurrectionists. From the beginning — when they were not arrested the same day — they have been treated very lightly. (Ashli Babbitt is dead because she was trying to climb through a window near where Congress members were fleeing from the mob that was trying to break down the doors. So she wasn't treated lightly, but she's about the only one.)

None of the people who were eventually tried have received the prosecutors' recommended sentence, from what I have seen in news coverage.  

The most recent example of those light sentences was in my local papers today: a Minneapolis man named Brian Mock, who was sentenced to two years and nine months, although prosecutors recommended nine years and a month. He was convicted of 11 counts, including felony assault, for attacking police that day. He's been in jail for the past year, so he'll be out in a year and nine months.

Mock's big reason to ask for leniency was that he didn't bring any arms or body armor. He claims he got "caught up" in the moment. But he clearly knew he would be in the midst of violence because he told his son he might die there. He posted online about the need for "total rebellion." The various ways he assaulted several cops are described in both of my local papers. He did use weapons; he just took them from the cops.

He has multiple violent incidents in his past: domestic assault, a weapons charge (when he threatened children, requiring SWAT response), and a restraining order from a second relationship. 

In his defense filings, he continued to question Biden's legitimacy as president.

And given all of that, Mock's inadequate sentence is bad enough, but the detail that gets me the most is this, from the AP story about his trial outcome:

The judge who convicted and sentenced Mock described some of his trial testimony as "silly," including his claim that he was referring to singer Nancy Sinatra — not then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — when he posted a Facebook message on Jan. 1, 2021, that said " Well Nancy, that ain't the worst thing that's going to happen to you this week."

That is clearly perjury, but instead of charging him with an additional crime, the judge called it silly.

That's how lightly the insurrectionists are treated.