The FBI’s investigation identified a photo from Gregory Yetman’s Instagram page, showing him wearing a hat consistent with a hat he had worn on Jan. 6, 2021. Yetman pleaded guilty April 25, 2024, in federal court to a felony offense of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with physical contact during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (District Court of the District of Columbia)
An Army National Guardsman who admitted to pepper spraying police during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and later sparked an FBI manhunt has pleaded guilty in federal court.
Gregory Yetman, 47, entered the plea Thursday to one felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with physical contact, according to records filed in federal court for the District of Columbia.
Yetman, an enlisted military police officer with the Army National Guard in 2021, came to the attention of authorities after he posted on Facebook about being at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots, court documents said.
“I don’t think i’ll be backing the blue after this,” one post by the New Jersey heavy equipment operator said after the riot, investigators said. The Jan. 6 insurrection left at least 140 police officers injured, the Justice Department said in January.
These posts were sent as screenshots to the Army Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI, a criminal complaint against Yetman said. Investigators said they used photos posted online and taken via body cameras to identify Yetman as the man who used a 20-inch-tall MK-46H chemical spray cannister on police officers that day.
A screenshot of Gregory Yetman’s Facebook posts. Yetman, a military police officer with the Army National Guard who participated in the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, pleaded guilty April 25, 2024, in federal court to a felony offense of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with physical contact. (District Court of the District of Columbia)
Yetman told investigators in 2021 that during the attack he was just helping people exposed to tear gas by pouring water in their eyes, that he supports law enforcement and that anyone assaulting police officers should be prosecuted, a 2023 criminal complaint said.
But in his guilty plea Wednesday, Yetman conceded that he used an MK-46H pepper spray cannister on a group of police officers for 12 to 14 seconds, causing them to retreat, the court document said. Yetman was among the rioters encircling officers on the west terrace of the Capitol, his plea agreement said.
After that, Yetman said, he used his phone to document the crowd and walked up to the lower west terrace, where rioters attempted to enter the Capitol.
Yetman’s guilty plea comes after an FBI manhunt to arrest him in November. Yetman fled into the woods when federal agents arrived at his home Nov. 8. He turned himself in two days later after a police dragnet.
He held the rank of sergeant at the end of his service in the National Guard, a report in November by the New Jersey-based NJ.com said. He served in the New Jersey Army National Guard from 2008 to 2022, an Army spokeswoman told NJ.com.
Yetman is scheduled for sentencing July 22. He faces up to four years in prison. He initially faced four other charges, which were dropped.
Yetman is one of more than 1,385 people charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot and one of almost 500 charged with assault or impeding law enforcement, a Justice Department statement said Wednesday.
Thus far, five active-duty troops arrested in connection with the breach of the Capitol. Other National Guardsmen who have been implicated in the incident include Joseph Bierbrodt of Illinois and Matthew Honigford of Ohio.
Yetman had been one of about 15 people connected to Jan. 6 held in pretrial custody without having been convicted of a crime, an NBC News report Thursday said.
