Texas warehouse operator sentenced to 7 years in prison for his role in the January 6

• Christopher Ray Grider joined an attack on the US Capitol House chamber when police fatally shot another rioter.
• Grider also attempted to shut off power to the Capitol building during the January 6, 2021 protests.
• He has been sentenced to six years and 11 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his actions.

A Texas bodega operator was sentenced Tuesday to nearly seven years in prison for storming the US Capitol and joining an attack on the House chamber when police shot and killed another rioter.

Christopher Ray Grider also attempted to shut off power to the Capitol building during the January 6, 2021 riots, “a terrifying act of political and institutional sabotage,” according to prosecutors.

US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Grider to six years and 11 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Grider, 41, joined the mob’s assault on the House chamber and helped another rioter break through the glass doors of the Speaker’s Lobby, “setting in motion the chain of events” that led to an officer fatally shooting fellow rioter Ashli ​​Babbitt, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. .

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of seven years and three months for Grider.

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Grider pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors before going to trial on other charges. Testified at his December 2022 bench trial before Kollar-Kotelly decided the case without a jury and convicted him of seven counts, including civil disorder and obstruction of the January 6 joint session of Congress to certify election victory. of President Joe Biden.

Defense attorney Brent Mayr said Grider “truly regrets his actions on January 6 and apologizes to his family, his community, and most importantly, this country.” There is no evidence that Grider engaged in violence on Capitol Hill, his attorney said.

“This is a sad day,” Mayr wrote in an email after his client’s sentencing. “We respect the court’s consideration of all that Chris did to try to put things right after January 6, but we are disappointed that his sentence is significantly longer than others who did so much worse than him.” .

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to riots at the Capitol. Just over 500 of them have been convicted, and more than half have received prison terms ranging from one week to more than 14 years. Only seven rioters have received longer prison sentences than Grider so far, according to an Associated Press review of court records.

Also Tuesday, a different judge sentenced a member of the Rhode Island extremist group Proud Boys to two months in prison for his role in the January 6 riots. US District Judge Trevor McFadden also sentenced Bernard Joseph Sirr to six months of home confinement and one year of probation, according to court records.

Sirr, 47, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, pleaded guilty in January to joining other rioters in a coordinated attack on police officers guarding a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace.

Prosecutors sought a 10-month prison term for Sirr, a US Army veteran who has worked as a reactor engineer at the Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center, home to the state’s only nuclear reactor.

Grider was a US Air Force military police officer protecting an air base after serving in the Army National Guard. More recently, he has operated a family winery with his wife near Waco, Texas.

Grider and a friend flew to Washington, DC, on the morning of January 6. They missed then-President Trump’s speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally, but the two friends arrived in time to join the crowd of Trump supporters marching on the Capitol.

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Outside the Capitol, Grider helped other protesters dismantle police barricades and picked up a discarded police helmet.

After entering the building, he approached a utility panel and tried in vain to shut off power to the Capitol. He urged other rioters to join him as he marched towards the Chamber’s chamber, shouting “We’ve got to get in the chamber! This way, this way, this way!”.

Joining the mob attack on the gates leading to the House, Grider pleaded with the cops to open the gates. Grider turned the helmet over to another rioter, Zachary Alam, who used it to break a panel in the glass doors of the Speaker’s Lobby, prosecutors said. A Capitol police lieutenant on the other side of the gates shot and killed Babbitt, a California Air Force veteran, as she climbed through the opening.

“Despite witnessing the shooting, and instead of obeying officers’ instructions to leave the area, Grider lingered for several minutes, interfering with police efforts to provide medical assistance to the injured rioter and restore order to the area. ”, wrote a prosecutor in a court filing.

Alam was charged separately and has a jury trial scheduled to begin July 31.

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Mayr said that Grider was “not some bigoted, anti-social, anti-government individual obsessed with coming to (Washington) to do harm and violence.”

“He was a productive and positive member of his community with a number of underlying issues and experiences that made him susceptible to manipulation by a narcissist and false beliefs that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump,” Mayr wrote in a filing. judicial.