Seattle Man Gets 5 Years for Hitting Officer with Baseball Bat, Arson During Riot

A 19-year-old man was sentenced to five years in prison Friday for hitting a Seattle officer in the head with a metal baseball bat and attempting to burn down the East Precinct police station with firebombs during a September 2020 riot.

Jacob Greenburg, 19, the stepson of former Kirkland State Rep. Laura Ruderman, was charged with first-degree assault for the attack on Officer Jose Jimenez. KING 5 reports. Investigators said the officer’s bike helmet likely saved his life. The impact of the bat dented his helmet.

"I don't know how I'm still here," Jimenez told the court Friday.

The officer added, “My head almost got taken off that night. That impact that night, I did not feel the repercussions that I’m going to have to live through…I don’t know how much worse my headaches might get when I get older,” KIRO7 reports.

Greenburg was also charged with first-degree attempted arson and first-degree reckless burning for his attack on the police station.

A woman who also participated in the fire bombing, Danielle McMillan, 29, was sentenced to 12 months of community service. McMillan was charged with first-degree attempted arson.

Greenburg and McMillan allegedly reveled in the assault on Jimenez and indicated their desire to cause him serious injury or death. “Wish he didn’t have a helmet on lol,” Greenburg texted McMillan, according to charging documents.

Court documents also revealed text messages in which Greenburg and McMillan allegedly conspired to set fires around SPD’s East Precinct. The documents revealed a series of exchanges Greenburg had with other protesters. One of them read, “How many Molotov cocktails you think we should have by Labor Day cuz we shouldn’t overuse our resources.”