Nathaniel Tuck, circled in yellow on the right, appears with members of the Proud Boys on the lawn of the Capitol. (U.S. Attorney’s Office)
A former cop and member of the Proud Boys from Florida was sentenced for being among the first wave of rioters to breach Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
Nathaniel Tuck, 32, was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 months in prison — or just over one year — by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Donald Trump appointee. Tuck pleaded guilty in September to a felony charge of obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and a misdemeanor charge of trespassing.
Tuck was a member of the “Space Coast” chapter of the Proud Boys when he traveled to Washington, D.C., with his father and other members of the Proud Boys. Prosecutors said Tuck planned and coordinated with others for weeks in advance to riot and then acted on those plans, breaching the Capitol together with his compatriots, opposing police efforts to quell the unrest, and purposefully interrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power for the first time in American history.
Prosecutors said Tuck and his group were among the first wave of rioters who entered the Capitol grounds after they were breached at 12:53 p.m. Tuck and members of his group pushed past officers and entered the Capitol building at approximately 2:18 p.m., making physical contact with at least one officer. Inside, Tuck joined other rioters in taunting police officers. At one point, he made statements referencing the lack of stimulus checks.
He remained inside the Capitol for approximately 54 minutes before exiting at 3:12 p.m. After leaving, he reunited with other Proud Boys for a celebratory photograph on Capitol grounds.
Later that day, in a text conversation with family, Tuck said he “Fought the police.”
After Jan. 6, as the feds began charging members of his group, Nathaniel Tuck said in text messages to his father that he thought the FBI was “overcharging” Proud Boys.
“We may lose this battle but we will win the war,” his father told him, according to court documents. “We will be able to sue after.”
Tuck responded, in part, by saying, “Politics won’t save us. Violence is the only way we will win.”
In a sentencing memo asking for 36 months probation, Tuck’s lawyer William L. Shipley said his client, a married father of a young child, was not violent that day.
“He primarily remained a singular member of a much larger group of individuals, and mostly observed the conduct of others,” Shipley wrote. “The fact that he had been with some individuals who were among that group through the course of the morning is not a basis to hold Mr. Tuck accountable for what happened due to the conduct of others over whom he had no control.”
In their sentencing memo asking for 24 months imprisonment, prosecutors said Tuck is a former cop. From 2012 to 2020, he was a police officer, first with the Longwood Police Department in Longwood, Florida, and then with the Apopka Police Department in Apopka, Florida.
He told the U.S. Probation Office he quit his police job in October 2020 “because of the whole George Floyd thing,” referring to the Black man who was killed in Minnesota on May 25, 2020, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minnesota police officer convicted of murder after being seen on cellphone video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd lay facedown in handcuffs.
A police spokesperson said Tuck resigned from the department before the Capitol Riot to pursue a job in another field.
Tuck’s father, also a former cop, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and is set to be sentenced on Tuesday.
In the 43 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,488 people have been charged for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol.
Law&Crime has previously covered the story of one of Tuck’s codefendants, Arthur Jackman. Jackman was seen in photos and video on Jan. 6 that showed him stalking the Capitol’s hallways briefly with Proud Boys member Joseph Biggs, the former Infowars contributor who was tapped by Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio play a major role inside the extremist group — and then was convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside him.
Tarrio has received the longest sentence so far of any Jan. 6 defendant — 22 years.
Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
