New York
A Clean Slate for Jan. 6 Rioters From the New York Area
Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at some of the Jan. 6 rioters whom President Donald J. Trump pardoned or whose sentences he commuted in a sweeping set of executive orders.
Nearly 1,600 people charged with taking part in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were pardoned or had their sentences commuted by President Donald J. Trump this week. A number of the criminal defendants had ties to New York, as my colleague Ed Shanahan reported, and had been convicted on an array of charges, from trespassing to assaulting law enforcement officers. But this sweeping action has wiped clean the slate for them.
A White House proclamation called the pardons an end to a “grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, criticized the action.
“Donald Trump is ushering in a Golden Age for people that break the law and attempt to overthrow the government,” he said.
Those with ties to New York who garnered widespread attention during the riot included:
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Thomas Webster: A former Marine and a retired New York City police officer, Webster was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being caught on video shoving through a police line and then swinging a flagpole at and tackling an officer. He made a self-defense claim at trial, but the jury rejected it.
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Dominic Pezzola: Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys and a contractor from Rochester, was found guilty on six felony counts, including charges of assaulting an officer and conspiring to keep members of Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. He became known as a main actor in the riot when video clips showing him breaking a window at the Capitol surfaced online.
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Roberto Minuta: Minuta is a former Oath Keeper. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for seditious conspiracy related to the riot. He has since tried to distance himself from the group, suggesting at his sentencing that he had been misled by it.
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Thomas Sibick: After pleading guilty to assaulting a Metropolitan Police officer during the riot, Sibick was sentenced to just over four years in prison. He took responsibility for his actions in a letter to the judge, calling the trauma the officer had experienced “undeniably sickening.”
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Sara Carpenter: Carpenter, also a former New York City police officer, was ordered to spend 22 months in prison after being convicted of several crimes that involved her pushing and slapping officers while wielding a tambourine and yelling.
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Edward Jacob Lang: Lang was charged with a series of crimes connected to the riot and had been in jail awaiting his trial when Trump issued the blanket pardon. Investigators arrested Lang after tracing a string of social media posts back to him. Court records said that the social media posts showed Lang swinging a baseball bat at police officers and thrusting a riot shield in their direction.
Weather
Today will gradually become sunny with a high near 31. Expect a breezy evening with a mostly clear sky and a low around 19.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended to aid weather operations.
The latest New York news
Dear Diary:
Over 45 years ago, I took a class in sales at a building at West 41st Street and Eighth Avenue. At the end of the first night, I yelled out, “Anyone going to the East Side?”
“I am,” said one woman in a class of 15 to 20 people.
Making our way east across 42nd Street, we walked past peep shows, food vendors and pickpockets.
‘Part of the job’
Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.
He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.
Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”
He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.
A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.
But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.
Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.
Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.
And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.
After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.
But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.
The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.
His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.
M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.
In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.
“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.
Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.
A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.
An Uptick in Subway Strikes
San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.
Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.
The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.
But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.
“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”
new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
transcript
transcript
Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
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