WASHINGTON — A former Boston Police K-9 officer pleaded guilty to eight federal charges this week, admitting that he assaulted a Capitol Police officer with a chair during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Joseph Fisher was arrested in March 2023 after online "sedition hunters" who have assisted the FBI in hundreds of cases against Capitol rioters identified him as the man seen in surveillance footage inside the Capitol assaulting a police officer. Fisher pleaded guilty to all the charges he was facing, including felony civil disorder and a count of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
Fisher, who was "wearing a beanie with the logos of several Boston sports teams," entered the Capitol at 1:26 p.m. through the Senate wing doors on the west side of the Capitol, which was the first breach point, and soon made his way down the stairs to the Capitol Visitor Center, which is underground on the east side of the Capitol, according to prosecutors.
There, Fisher “pushed a chair” into an officer who was pursuing another rioter who had deployed pepper spray, according to the Department of Justice. Fisher, prosecutors said, then "engaged in a physical assault against the Victim, which ended with Fisher on the ground and out of the camera frame." Capitol Police footage that showed the attack was released in connection with a case against Jan. 6 defendant Brad Rukstales, a former tech CEO from Illinois who was sentenced to 30 days in prison in November 2021.
Fisher, who pleaded guilty to all of the crimes he was charged with without the benefit of a plea agreement, is set to be sentenced on May 24. His attorney did not response to a request for comment.
More than 1,250 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and federal prosecutors have secured convictions against roughly 900 of them so far. The total number of individuals who could be charged tops 3,000, but it is unlikely that federal prosecutors reach that number by the time the statute of limitations expires in 23 months, in early 2026. Additional arrests continue to roll in, with about a dozen new cases unsealed this week, including a case against a rioter who, like Fisher, was wearing the beanie of his local sports team.
