Trump Pardons Capitol Rioter From Montco Who Beat Police Officer

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA — A Montgomery County man who beat a police officer with a metal flagpole until it broke during the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol has been pardoned of his crimes by President Trump.

Howard C. Richardson, 74, of King of Prussia, was among some 1,500 individuals convicted of crimes connected to the storming of the Capitol in Washington D.C. in 2021. All of them were either pardoned by Trump, or had their sentences commuted to time served.

Richardson has been behind bars since his arrest in Nov. 2021. It's unclear when exactly he will be freed.

The FBI spent four years exhaustively tracking down those responsible for what they described as an insurrection attempt, working with state and local law enforcement to track down suspects based on social media footage. But Trump made good on an old promise on his first day in office, pardoning all Jan. 6 convicts within hours after being sworn in on Monday.

"This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation," Trump said in a presidential proclamation issued Monday.

The order grants a full, complete and unconditional pardon to anyone convicted of offenses related to Jan. 6, dismisses all pending indictments filed against anyone in connection to the incident.

Richardson had pleaded guilty in April 2022 to assaulting, resisting, and impeding officers.

He was part of a crowd that breached police barriers into a restricted area of the Capitol grounds that day, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office out of Washington, D.C.

As the crowd came up to another police barricade at around 1:38 p.m., Richardson raised the flag and brought it down to strike one of the officers, authorities said. He then raised it and hit the officer with it at least two more times until it broke, according to officials.

Moments later, Richardson was part of a group that shoved a large metal sign into a line of other police officers.

After his 46 months of incarceration, Richardson was also set to face three years of probation and a $2,000 fine, the judge ruled.