Marine accused of flashing a Nazi salute during the Capitol riot gets almost 5 years in prison

A Marine who stormed the U.S. Capitol and apparently flashed a Nazi salute in front of the building was sentenced on Friday to nearly five years in prison.

Tyler Bradley Dykes, of South Carolina, was an active-duty Marine when he grabbed a police riot shield from the hands of two police officers and used it to push his way through police lines during the attack by the mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

Dykes, who pleaded guilty in April to assault charges, previously was convicted of a crime stemming from the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dykes was transferred to federal custody in 2023 after he served a six-month sentence in a state prison.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell sentenced Dykes, who’s 26, to four years and nine months of imprisonment, the Justice Department said.

Federal prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of five years and three months for Dykes.

“He directly contributed to some of the most extreme violence on the Capitol’s east front,” prosecutors wrote.

Dykes’ attorneys requested a two-year prison sentence. They said Dykes knows his actions on Jan. 6 were “illegal, indefensible and intolerable.”

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“Tyler hates his involvement in the Capitol riot,” his lawyers wrote. “He takes complete responsibility for his actions. Tyler apologizes for those actions.”

Dykes, then 22, traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the Republican Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally with two friends from his hometown of Bluffton, South Carolina. After parting ways with his friends, Dykes ripped snow fencing out of the ground and pulled aside bicycle rack barricades as he approached the Capitol.

Later, Dykes joined other rioters in breaking through a line of police officers who were defending stairs leading to the Capitol’s East Rotunda Doors.

“After reaching the top of the stairs, Dykes celebrated his accomplishment, performing what appears to be the Sieg Heil salute,” prosecutors wrote.

After stealing the riot shield from the two officers, Dykes entered the Capitol and held it in one hand while he raised his other hand in celebration. He also used the shield to assault police officers inside the building, forcing them to retreat down a hallway, prosecutors said.

Dykes gave the shield to an officer after he left the Capitol.

Dykes denied that he performed a Nazi salute on Jan. 6, but prosecutors say his open-handed gesture was captured on video.

In August 2017, photos captured Dykes joining tiki torch-toting white supremacists on a march through the University of Virginia’s campus on the eve of the Unite the Right rally. A photo shows him extending his right arm in a Nazi salute and carrying a lit torch in his left hand.

In March 2023, Dykes was arrested on charges related to the march. He pleaded guilty to a felony charge of burning an object with intent to intimidate.

Dykes briefly attended Cornell University in the fall of 2017 before he joined the Marine Corps. In May 2023, he was discharged from the military under “other than honorable” conditions.

“Rather than honor his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, Dykes’s criminal activity on January 6 shows he was instead choosing to violate it,” prosecutors wrote.

More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 900 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.