A retired firefighter who threw a fire extinguisher at police during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was hit with a four-year prison sentence Tuesday.
Robert Sanford of Boothwyn, Pennsylvania was caught-on-camera slinging the steel extinguisher at a swarm of officers who had formed a line against the raging protesters outside the Capitol Building.
The flying firefighting device struck two cops in the head — including one who wasn’t wearing a helmet.
“Sanford also hurled obscenities and insults at the law enforcement officers on the Lower West Terrace, calling them ‘traitors,’” Washington DC prosecutor, Janani Iyengar, wrote in a court filing.
A judge sentenced Sanford — who also tossed an orange traffic cone at a Capitol police sergeant — to four years and four months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Sanford had retired from his 26-year-long career as a Chester Fire Department firefighter just a few months before taking part in the Stop the Steal rally.
A fire extinguisher is “an instrument that he was uniquely familiar with and should have known how much damage it could cause,” the prosecutor wrote.
Sanford claimed police had attacked him and others without provocation, his defense team said. The retired smoke-eater thought the extinguisher was empty when he hurled it at the cops.
Sanford had traveled to the protest with a group of friends on a bus trip organized by the conservative activist group Turning Point USA.
He listened to then-President Donald Trump’s speech before joining the angry mob as they stormed the Capitol, though he didn’t enter the building.
He was arrested in January 2021 after a friend reported him to the FBI. He has been jailed since he pleaded guilty last September to assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers using a dangerous weapon — a felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge.
More than 100 police officers were injured during the Jan. 6 riot.
The riot is still under federal investigation. A court ruled last week that Trump’s former aides must testify before a grand jury tasked with determining if the ex-president and his allies should face federal prosecution in connection with the riots.