A former Marine who joined the riot that stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for his role in the insurrection. At the time, he was serving in the Marine Corps and during the events of the day attacked police with a commandeered riot shield.
On Friday, July 19, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell sentenced 26-year-old Tyler Bradley Dykes of South Carolina to four years and nine months in prison. Additionally, he will have to pay $22,000 in fines and serve 36 months of supervised release.
Dykes, then 22 at the time of the Capitol riot, was serving as an active-duty Marine at the time of the rally-turned-attack, when supporters of former president Donald Trump marched on the Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. Dykes previously pleaded guilty in April to two charges, including impeding or obstructing police and for using a police riot shield as a dangerous weapon.
Dykes previously had been convicted for “felonious conduct” for his role in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist and far-right groups gathered and marched with tiki torches. On the second day of the rally, another participant drove into counter protesters, killing one person, Heather Heyer. Dykes served a six-month sentence in state prison for that conviction, after which he was arrested and transferred into federal custody in 2023.
Dykes joined the Marine Corps in 2017, after participating in the Unite the Right rally and after dropping out of college. Prior to his arrest for federal charges, he had been discharged from the Marine Corps for “other than honorable conditions” for his participation on the Charlottesville rally.
According to the Department of Justice, Dykes was a participant in three different channels on the Telegram messaging app that denied the results of the 2020 election and pushed to overturn it. On Jan. 6, 2021, he was one of hundreds near the front of the group that marched on the Capitol, pushing through barricades and breaching the building. During the push, he grabbed and took a riot shield from a police officer. Photographic and video evidence presented in the case showed Dykes using the shield to help push police back as rioters stormed further into the Capitol.
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Prosecutors also accused Dykes of performing a fascist “sieg heil” salute at the top of the Capitol stairs after the mob successfully breached the Capitol. Dykes denied it, although images of Dykes during the events of Jan. 6, 2021 show him flashing the salute, arm raised, palm extended flat. Additionally, photographs of the Unite the Right rally in 2017 show Dykes participating in the torch march and flashing the fascist salute.
According to court documents, prosecutors pushed for a 63-month prison sentence, while the defense argued he should only serve two years, in part for his guilty plea.
According to the Justice Department, roughly 1,400 people have been arrested for their role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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