By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


A Wixom man will remain jailed on charges of striking police officers and others with a hockey stick during the U.S. Capitol riot.

At a hearing Monday, a prosecutor said that 30-year-old Michael Joseph Foy of Wixom struck police at least 10 times with a hockey stick during the riot, as he persuaded a judge to keep him locked up. Foy was “among the most violent of all the rioters that day,” according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Hank Moon who said Foy “wasn’t there as an idle participant,” noting that he is a combat-trained Marine and that videos and pictures from the riot, including body-cam images from police who were attacked, show he assumed a leadership role in the violence.

Foy is charged with five federal crimes in U.S. District Court in Detroit including assault and obstruction of law enforcement. Moon said Foy rushed officers with his hockey stick, “viciously beating them 10 times in the head, face, neck and body areas, even after some of the officers had been dragged to the ground and were not in a position to defend themselves.” He said that Foy subsequently crawled through a broken window into the Capitol.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Morris said Foy will remain in the custody of U.S. marshals and be transported to Washington where the case was filed. Foy’s attorney said her client has mental health problems but was honorably discharged as a Marine corporal in 2019 after five years and has no criminal record. Colleen Fitzharris said the alleged acts were “completely out of character” and asked that Foy be released to his mother. “Mr. Foy did not go to D.C. in order to commit any acts of violence,” Fitzharris said, adding that the hockey stick was used to hold a flag in favor of President Donald Trump. “Psychological studies talk a lot about the impact of mob mentality and how it causes people who otherwise would not engage in certain conduct to behave completely differently.”

But the judge said Foy and the public would be safer if he remained in custody. Foy is the second Michigan man to be charged in the Capitol violence. Karl Dresch of Calumet was ordered held without bond last week.