It’s about a 590-mile drive from Shelbyville, Ind., to the U.S. Capitol, and Mark A. Mazza wanted to be prepared when he got to the nation’s capital for a rally on Jan. 6, 2021. So he packed a .45-caliber revolver, loaded with both shotshells and hollow-point bullets, and a .40-caliber revolver.
“All I heard about in Indiana,” Mazza said, “is D.C. is the murder capital.”
So he carried the two loaded guns with him from the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse, led by President Donald Trump, to the Capitol and soon began brawling with police, court records and videos show. In his first fight with officers on the west side of the Capitol, he fell down and his Taurus “Judge” .45-caliber handgun dropped out of his waistband, court records state.
Rather than retrieve it, Mazza pushed on, and wound up at the front of the mob assault on officers in the Lower West Terrace tunnel. Videos show he helped lead the “heave-ho” push at a door which partially crushed one officer and swiped a baton from another before smashing the officer’s hand with it. He then recruited more rioters to join in on the extended push to break through into the Capitol halls, videos show.
“I may go down as a hero,” Mazza told Capitol Police investigators two months later, calling himself a patriot and saying he was angry about the state of the country. He told the police that if they came back to arrest him, “put me in a fed … I just want three squares and a nice clean room, someone takes care of my health care and I’m good.”
Mazza, 57, got his wish to be put in a fed. A federal judge Friday sentenced him to five years in prison, for assaulting police with a deadly weapon and carrying an unregistered firearm in the District. Mazza is one of seven people charged with carrying firearms at or near the Capitol on Jan. 6, and the fifth to plead guilty.
Prosecutors had sought a six and a half year term, saying his beating of a neighborhood boy last year showed he was still dangerous.
While Mazza was waiting to be arrested, court records show, he attacked a 12-year-old who made derogatory comments about the Trump flag hanging above Mazza’s home. Prosecutors said Mazza referred to the child as the n-word, saying Trump “kills” people like him. A Shelbyville police report said Mazza picked up the boy by the neck, slammed him to the ground and held him down. Shortly before his arrest on federal charges in the Capitol attack, Mazza was convicted of misdemeanor assault and fined.
When Mazza returned to Shelbyville, he called police on Jan. 8 to report that his Taurus Judge had been stolen from his car at a casino in Ohio. That lie, one of many Mazza told in subsequent months, led investigators to visit Mazza in March 2021, where he told them he didn’t assault any police officers on Jan. 6.
“Didn’t swing, didn’t do nothing,” Mazza told the Capitol Police investigators. Asked if he had anything else to add, Mazza said, “Never did get to talk to Nancy,” referring to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I thought Nan and I would hit it off … I was glad I didn’t because you’d be here for another reason.”
When police searched his home in November, Mazza revealed he also had a .40-caliber gun at the Capitol on Jan. 6, stashed in a floor safe. Police also seized more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from Mazza’s house as well as the police baton he’d stolen with the serial number scratched off.
A man who drove from Shelbyville with Mazza, Roger K. Baugh, pleaded guilty Friday to felony civil disorder and is scheduled to be sentenced in January.
Mazza was the 48th rioter sentenced for a felony. The average prison sentence for Jan. 6 felonies is slightly less than three years, according to a Washington Post database. Of the 880 rioters charged so far, more than 270 have been charged with assaulting the police, the Justice Department said in a recent release.
It is not clear whether Mazza, carrying two firearms, actually entered the Ellipse where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, and where the Secret Service was using metal detectors to screen attendees. At about 2:30 p.m., according to court records, Capitol Police trying to hold the line at barricades on the West Terrace were attacked by rioters. A sergeant reported that when he struck a man with his baton, the man fell and a loaded Taurus Judge revolver fell from the man’s pants, with three .410-gauge shotshells and two .45-caliber hollow-point rounds.
After losing his first gun, Mazza proceeded to the West Terrace tunnel, videos show, where he helped lead the push against officers, loudly cursed at them, and then grabbed the baton of Sgt. Phuson Nguyen and hit him with it. Nguyen was not seriously hurt in that encounter, but later he would get knocked down at the front of the tunnel and have chemical irritants sprayed into his gas mask while it was momentarily pulled from his face.
Mazza then battled with police, and held open glass doors to enable other rioters to confront police, while screaming epithets at the officers, surveillance video shows. He then moved to the back of the crowd, and can be seen pulling other rioters in from outside to join the fray.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tejpal S. Chawla said officers would have “been able to push people out” of the tunnel if Mazza hadn’t recruited more people.
“Mr. Mazza through his efforts now makes that impossible,” Chawla said.
At the front of the fray, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone can be seen telling Mazza to leave. When the mob built up again, rioters yanked Fanone outside, severely beating and used a Taser on the officer. Prosecutors said Mazza helped protect Fanone and another downed officer until help could arrive. Mazza stayed at the Capitol for another 90 minutes after being expelled from the tunnel.
“I have remorse for everything I did on that day,” Mazza told U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg. “I got caught up on the mob mentality that I never anticipated. I went for a rally, I ended up at the Capitol.” He said he has been extorted, beaten and robbed while being held at the Northern Neck Regional Jail for the last 11 months. “I throw myself on the mercy of this court.”
“I don’t know what on earth you were thinking in the tunnel that day,” Boasberg told him. “The videos are incredibly alarming. … The mob doesn’t accomplish what it accomplished that day without numbers, and you were a big part of that.”
Advisory federal sentencing guidelines set a range of 57 to 71 months for the conviction of assaulting police with a deadly weapon (the baton), and six to 24 months for carrying an unregistered gun. Prosecutors said 78 months would be the middle of both sentences, if served consecutively. Boasberg imposed 60 months on the assault charge and six months on the gun charge, running them concurrently, saying he gave Mazza credit for helping the two downed police officers and serving three years in the Army in Germany.