Kyler Joseph Bard (U.S. Attorney’s Office)
A megaphone-wielding 28-year-old Missouri man who shoved a cop during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and later bragged about his actions that day is going to prison.
Kyler Joseph Bard was sentenced on Friday to just over a year imprisonment by U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee. Bard is set to report to prison on Jan. 15, days before Donald Trump takes office.
The judge told the defendant he didn’t think he had “evil in your heart,” but he needed to be held accountable for his actions, The Kansas City Star reported.
“We, as a country, do need to heal,” Mehta said. “I don’t think it’s simply up to the victims. They do have a say, but there’s a role for the courts and the justice system to play.”
Bard apologized, the newspaper reported.
“There is no doubt that on January 6, 2021, I made the worst mistake of my life,” he said through tears. “My wife is probably the sole reason that I am a changed man today.”
He pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting officers, civil disorder, trespassing and disorderly conduct, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
In his white sweatshirt and a red, white and blue winter hat with the words “Trump” and a “45” logo, Bard incited rioters and an assault against an officer, court documents said.
At 3:30 p.m. that day, he could be seen in police body camera footage walking with a megaphone on a ledge on the Capitol’s Upper West Terrace.
“Move! Move! Move! We gotta push! We gotta push! Let’s go! We gotta go! Let’s go!” he yelled, court documents said.
He turned to an officer and yelled, “let’s push!” as he shoved an officer. The officer repelled his assault, sending Bard backward, court documents said.
He lost his balance and fell to the ground, yelling to the assembled cops, “You’re all a bunch of pieces of s—,” before getting up and retreating into the crowd.
“I’ve already been maced, punched, they took my microphone away, and, uh, when I punched them, they punched me back,” he told someone later on his cellphone. “Maced me in the face. But it’s what we gotta do. We gotta get inside, we gotta take it over. We gotta do it.”
A confidential source tipped off the feds to Instagram posts from the “kyler_bard” account showing him at the Capitol. One photo showed someone pouring water into his eyes and referring to him getting “maced and punched for yelling in a megaphone,” court documents said.
“Here are some pics I’ve collected from my trip to DC,” one post said, according to court documents. “The movement I saw here was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Upwards of 500k people at the capital to stand up for a stolen election. These people are angry, and rightfully so. Over the last day I’ve been maced and punched for yelling in a megaphone, we were locked in our hotel by police and threatened by ANTIFA. It’s been a wild ride and I’m so lucky to have experienced a once in a lifetime event.”
He was arrested on Jan. 17, 2023, in Missouri after he was put onto the FBI’s “Be on the Lookout Assault on Federal Officer #447.”
In an interview at his home in Missouri, he told FBI agents he was at the Capitol but didn’t go inside the building and “did nothing illegal,” court documents said.
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