A North Carolina man who led the initial assault on police at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been sentenced to prison in a Washington, DC, courtroom, prosecutors announced Friday.
James Tate Grant, a 31-year-old Cary resident, and three other men who were also convicted led the first breach of restricted Capitol grounds and the first attack on U.S. Capitol Police officers on Thursday, according to FBI criminal charges against the men.
A fifth man found guilty in February of the first offense, Ryan Samsel, 40, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 4, 2025, court records show.
“Their attack paved the way for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, said in a press release.
Grant and other convicts sentenced Thursday struck an officer with a metal barrier, according to an FBI criminal complaint against Grant.
The other men convicted were Stephen Chase Randolph, 34, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky; Jason Benjamin Blythe, 28, of Fort Worth, Texas; and Paul Russell Johnson, 38, of Lanexa, Virginia.
During a February trial, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., found Grant guilty of disturbing the peace, assaulting a police officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstructing an official process — all felonies.
Cobb also found Grant guilty of physical violence on Capitol grounds and of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, both felonies.
Court records show he previously pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in certain areas of the Capitol building, and to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, which are also misdemeanors.
‘Apart from [sic.] the crowd ahead
According to court documents, Grant was closely following Samsel on January 6.
Grant wore a baseball cap with an insignia of a map of his home state and the words “Drink Local,” The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Samsel breached the first barricade on restricted grounds and approached the Capitol via the Pennsylvania Walkway, the first breach of the restricted perimeter, the FBI said in the criminal complaints.
Just behind Samsel, Grant waved [sic.] the crowd to the front” of the restricted area, the FBI said.
Samsel and Grant pushed and pulled on a second barricade as officers held it in place, the complaint against Grant says. Grant, Samsel and other men lifted the metal bike rack barricade off the ground and pushed it into a line of USCP officers, the document says.
‘Stormed the Hallways’ of the Capitol Building
The barricade hit the officer in the face with such force that he was thrown backward, hitting his head on a metal railing and then the stairs.
“The officer lost consciousness and suffered a concussion,” an FBI agent said in the complaint against Grant. “Another officer was pushed backward several feet by the metal bike rack barricade until the back of his body struck the stairs and railing behind him.”
Randolph jumped over the barricade and grabbed an officer, the officer said. Grant and Blythe “joined in the attack and attempted to pull Randolph and the officer toward a group of rioters,” the complaint said.
Other agents forced Grant, Randolph and Blythe to release the agent and retreat, the FBI agent wrote.
“By this point, the barricades were gone and the officers were outnumbered,” the complaint said. Rioters “quickly overwhelmed the police line and Capitol Police officers retreated into the Capitol.”
Grant then joined the mob that entered the Capitol building, and “each of the five men continued to incite the riot,” according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Grant climbed through a broken window next to the Senate Wing door and entered the Capitol around 2:50 p.m. “He then stormed the hallways with other rioters and was taken along with others” into the office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, the FBI said.
While on pretrial release in December 2021, Grant was charged with driving under the influence after a confrontation with Garner police in a restaurant parking lot, the Observer reported at the time.
Police said they found an AR-15 rifle and 60 rounds of .233-caliber ammunition in Grant’s car. When officers attempted to arrest him, Grant tried to flee, court records show.
“He then dropped to the ground and said something to the effect of, ‘Kill me now,'” federal prosecutors said in a court document.
The outcome of the local case was not yet known on Saturday.
