After receiving a letter from the family of a DC Metropolitan Police officer who committed suicide a week after the attack and who had “scuffled” with the defendant, a federal judge in Washington, DC delayed the scheduled sentencing for a January 6th Capitol attacker who had struck a plea deal with prosecutors, saying she needed more information about why the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, NBC News reports.
Federal District Court Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, was scheduled to sentence David Walls-Kaufmann, a DC chiropractor with an office in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, for a single misdemeanor count of “parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building” as part of a plea deal that dropped other charges that had been filed in a common move by prosecutors.
However, the family of deceased DC Metropolitan Police officer Jeffrey Smith wrote Cobb imploring the maximum sentence possible for Walls-Kaufmann. As outlined in the letter, Smith was one of the law enforcement officers attempting to hold the surging crowd of insurrections off. Smith’s bodycam footage shows Walls-Kaufmann seizing Smith’s baton and striking Smith two or three times in the face and/or head with it. Other footage shows Smith engaging with other insurrectionists, including a moment where he apparently got struck in the head by a metal object as police cleared the grounds at the end.
