A Capitol Police officer died of natural causes following multiple strokes after rioters attacked the building, Washington DC s chief medical examiner has ruled
A mob storms the US Capitol where members of Congress were voting to certify President Joe Biden s victory.
Photo: 2021 Getty Images
The medical examiner s office said 42-year-old officer Brian Sicknick died of multiple strokes the day after he was sprayed with a chemical outside the US Capitol while it was under siege.
The finding will make it harder for prosecutors to charge anyone with his murder.
Sicknick was one of hundreds of Capitol Police officers who battled supporters of former President Donald Trump on 6 January when they stormed the building in an attempt to stop Congress from formally certifying President Joe Biden s election victory.
US Capitol police said that the agency accepted the medical examiner’s findings but that the ruling didn’t change the fact that Sicknick had died in the line of duty, “courageously defending Congress and the Capitol”.
“The attack on our officers, including Brian, was an attack on our democracy,” police officials said in a statement. “The United States Capitol Police will never forget Officer Sicknick’s bravery, nor the bravery of any officer on January 6, who risked their lives to defend our democracy.”
Federal prosecutors have charged two men with using bear spray on Sicknick during the riot. The arrests of George Tanios, 39, of Morgantown, West Virginia, and Julian Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, were the closest federal prosecutors have come to identifying and charging anyone associated with the five deaths that happened during and after the riot.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
The District of Columbia s chief medical examiner has ruled that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick had two strokes and died of natural causes, after he tussled with a mob of former President Donald Trump s supporters at the US Capitol.
The medical examiner s office said on Monday that the 42-year-old officer s cause of death was natural causes after he suffered a stroke. He died the day after the 6 January violence.
The findings mean it will be hard for federal prosecutors to bring homicide charges in connection with Sicknick s death.
Two men - George Tanios and Julian Khater - are facing charges they assaulted three police officers, including Sicknick, by spraying them with a chemical irritant on 6 January.
Capitol cop Brian Sicknick’s death was from natural causes not a homicide: medical examiner
Updated Apr 19, 2021;
Posted Apr 19, 2021
FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2021, file photo, a U.S. Capitol Police officer holds a program during a ceremony memorializing U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, as an urn with his cremated remains lies in honor on a black-draped table at the center of the Capitol Rotunda in Washington. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)AP
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WASHINGTON Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was injured while confronting rioters during the Jan. 6 insurrection, suffered a stroke and died from natural causes, the Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office ruled Monday, a finding that lessens the chances that anyone will be charged in his death.