WASHINGTON — A southwest Missouri man who wanted to someday be a cop was sentenced Friday to one year in prison for assaulting an officer and several other offenses committed during the Capitol riot.

Kyler Joseph Bard, 28, of Seneca, also will have 24 months of supervised release and must pay $2,000 restitution for damage to the Capitol, which the government says totaled more than $2.9 million. His sentencing was before Judge Amit P. Mehta in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“There is no doubt that on January 6, 2021, I made the worst mistake of my life,” Bard said before hearing his sentence. He apologized to the officer and his family and said he hoped they would forgive him.

“My wife is probably the sole reason that I am a changed man today,” he said, tearing up as he spoke.

Bard is scheduled to report to prison on Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

His sentencing is the first of a Missouri or Kansas defendant to take place since Trump was reelected earlier this month. Trump has repeatedly pledged to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants. There was no mention of the potential pardons during Bard’s sentencing.

Defense attorney Joseph Passanise said Bard was swept up in the passion that day.

“Twenty-five-year-old young men sometimes have a bark bigger than their bite,” he said. “This was an aberration. And one that he has to live with, as now a convicted felon, for the rest of his life.”

But prosecutors said Bard’s actions were part of a massive riot that nearly succeeded in preventing the certification of the presidential election votes and threatened to throw the country into a constitutional crisis. After the attack, they said, he attempted to downplay his conduct and make it appear that the police had done something wrong.

Bard faced a maximum sentence of 33 months in prison and a $250,000 fine. The government had requested he be sentenced to 27 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, 100 hours of community service and $2,000 restitution.

Mehta said he didn’t believe Bard was a bad person or had “evil in your heart.” But he said Bard needed to be held accountable for urging other rioters to break through the police line and his attempt to breach the Capitol.

“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 is the 31st of the 37 Missouri residents charged in Capitol riot cases to be sentenced. Of the remaining Missouri defendants, one is awaiting a judge’s ruling on his recent bench trial, four have trials scheduled for next year and the case of another is still in its early stages.

Bard was arrested in Joplin in January 2023 and charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and obstructing officers during a civil disorder, both felonies. He also faced four misdemeanor counts: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; and engaging in an act of violence at the Capitol building or grounds.

He pleaded guilty in May to all six offenses.

According to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Bard had moved into the restricted area of the Capitol grounds by about 3:28 p.m. on Jan. 6 and stood at the Upper West Terrace in front of a police line with other rioters below and behind him.

Around 3:30 p.m., the document said, a rioter charged the police.

“Seeing this, Bard yelled into his megaphone, ‘Move! Move! Move! We gotta push! We gotta push! Let’s go! We gotta go! Let’s go!’” it said. “He turned directly toward the police line and yelled, ‘let’s push!’ He lowered his shoulder and rammed his body into an MPD police officer who was holding the line.”

Police repelled Bard’s assault, the government’s filing said, but he continued to push against the officer.

“As defendant fell backwards, he yelled to the officers, ‘You’re all a bunch of pieces of s—,’” the document said.

Bard then got up and went back into the crowd, it said.

“Later, Bard was recorded on video as he talked on a cellphone, saying, ‘I’ve already been maced, punched, they took my microphone away, and, uh, when I punched them, they punched me back and maced me in the face.’ He also said, ‘But it’s what we gotta do. We gotta get inside, we gotta take it over. We gotta do it.’”

After the riot, the government said, images of Bard on the Capitol grounds showed up on his Instagram account.

“Bard included a statement along with those photographs: ‘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’” the document said. “‘It’s been a wild ride and I’m so lucky to have experienced a once in a lifetime event.’”

Bard has no history of substance abuse or mental health issues, the government filing said, and “was living a seemingly law-abiding and well-adjusted life.” However, it said, “his behavior and statements show that he was among the rioters who were willing to engage in violence to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.”

And although he has now accepted responsibility for his actions, the government said, “his social media statements after January 6 were those of a man falsely claiming that the police were engaged in repressive conduct — not someone who was filled with remorse.”

Bard’s sentencing memorandum, filed Monday, said he has been married two years, has one daughter and works for a family business — factors, it said, that demonstrate he has “a strong sense of responsibility.”

The offense, it said, “has humbled him and made him take stock of his behavior and be extremely remorseful.”

“His actions were wrong, and he was caught up in the moment as he never intended to hurry (sic) anyone especially an officer,” his filing said. “Ironically, Defendant wanted to be a law enforcement officer and had shown for a ride along the very night his indictment was unsealed, and he was arrested.”

Included with Bard’s sentencing document were descriptions of his community service activities, nine letters of support from friends, supervisors, teachers and his mother and 22 photos showing him and his family participating in various activities.

Levi Winstead, a Joplin police officer, wrote that Bard “is and has always been supportive of law enforcement” and dreamed of being an officer someday.

“He applied for a police officer position and was pulled from the process due to his current situation,” Winstead wrote. “I feel that Kyler is being labeled incorrectly … Kyler is one of the best people I know, and I would trust my life with him.”

Steve Cochran, Bard’s work supervisor, wrote that “Kyler is a Christian, a husband, a father, a brother, a son, and a leader in his Southwestern Missouri community.”

“ … I truly believe that society would be better off,” he said, “with Kyler actively participating as a representative of someone who will learn from his experience, pick himself up, and act with dignity and respect in the everlasting pursuit to do what is right.”

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