Jack Wade Whitton, a Georgia business owner, was recently sentenced to nearly five years in prison for his role in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During the riot, Whitton attacked a police officer by hitting him with a metal crutch and dragging him into a mob of rioters on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. In a text message following the incident, Whitton boasted that he had “fed him to the people.”
Whitton was arrested in April 2021 and charged with several offenses related to his attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection. Despite admitting to assaulting a police officer, Whitton claimed that he was not a political person. However, videos of his violent actions proved otherwise. The judge in the case described the footage as “gruesome” and noted that Whitton’s behavior was out of control during the riot. Along with co-defendant Justin Jersey, Whitton’s actions were said to have ignited the violence that followed on the Lower West Terrace.
The sentence served as a reminder of the consequences of participating in violent acts during the insurrection. Over 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the event, and over 850 have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
