Former Boston cop says he will plead guilty to attacking a Capitol Police officer with a chair during failed Jan. 6 putsch

A federal judge in Washington has set a Feb. 1 hearing at which Joseph Fisher, a retired Boston Police canine officer, is expected to plead guilty to both felony and misdemeanor charges for bursting into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and using a chair to attack a Capitol Police officer who was pursuing one of Fisher's fellow attempted coup-makers.

In a recent filing in US District Court in Washington, Fisher's attorney, a public defender in Boston, said "Mr. Fisher anticipates pleading guilty to the Indictment as charged, without a plea agreement."

Fisher was arrested at his Plymouth home in March on charges that included the felonies of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder, as well as misdemeanor charges related to the way he entered the Capitol and acted like a common criminal nuisance.

Fisher, who retired from BPD in 2016, potentially faces up to 20 years in federal prison on just the charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. He has been living at home while awaiting disposition of his case.

According to the US Attorney's office:

Fisher entered the U.S. Capitol Building at approximately 2:24 P.M. on January 6, 2021 via the Senate Wing Door on the North side of the U.S. Capitol. At approximately 2:38 P.M., Fisher was in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Orientation Lobby where an altercation began between a U.S. Capitol Police Officer and other rioters. As a U.S. Capitol Police Officer pursued a rioter who had deployed pepper spray, Fisher pushed a chair into the Capitol Police Officer. Fisher then engaged in a physical altercation with the Capitol Police Officer. Shortly afterwards, Fisher exited the U.S. Capitol Building.

Fisher is not the only person affiliated with BPD who has faced problems because of involvement with the failed attempt to keep their loser of a presidential candidate in power. In March, the department fired officer Joseph Abasciano, who not only drove down to DC - although he did not enter the Capitol - but for tweets before and after that people who opposed Trump, including Vice President Pence and an assistant secretary of state in Georgia, were traitors, that he couldn't wait to see the Georgia official dragged away in chains, and that what we needed was "a civil war or a violent revolution."

A second BPD officer who drove to Washington with Abasciano was not disciplined because he didn't publicly call for violence against people with whom he disagreed.

Another officer, Michael Geary, was fired partly because of his online comments that Breona Taylor, shot to death in her bed during a no-knock raid, deserved what she got, but also because he responded to an FBI online effort to find Jan. 6 conspirators by saying "rats get bats."

Affidavit by FBI agent on the Fisher case (1.6M PDF).