Did House Impeachment Managers Rely on a Flimsy New York Times Report on Brian Sicknick’s Death?
The cause of death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick — who passed after sustaining injuries in the Capitol attack, and whose death has played a role in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump — remains remarkably unclear.
“The insurrectionists killed a Capitol Police officer by striking him in the head with a fire extinguisher,” the House impeachment managers stated in their pretrial memo. The claim appears to have been based on reporting that came out in the aftermath of the attack. But other conflicting reports, including a new one from CNN regarding efforts to bring charges in his death, have challenged it.
The claim from Democrats is based on a Jan. 8 story in the New York Times — “Capitol Police Officer Dies from Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage“ — that reported, “At some point in the chaos — with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress while lawmakers were forced to hide under their desks — [Sicknick] was struck with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials.”
A CNN report from Feb. 2, however, reported that authorities were unable to identify when Sicknick suffered his fatal injuries, and did not find signs he had been struck by a fire extinguisher.
“According to one law enforcement official, medical examiners did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma, so investigators believe that early reports that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher are not true,” CNN reported.
CNN correspondent Whitney Wild reported (watch above) that a leading theory from law enforcement is that the officer interacted with bear spray or another chemical irritant.
“That was what led to a fatal reaction and subsequently caused his death,” Wild said. “This is also helping them put to bed one of the early theories, one of the earlier suggestions, that he had been hit with a fire extinguisher and had suffered some blunt force trauma and that was what caused his death. Investigators now believe that is simply not true.”
The National Review’s Andrew McCarthy tackled the discrepancy between the new reporting and the claims made by House Democrats in a Thursday column.
He pointed to a Jan. 8 report from Houston’s KHOU, published weeks before impeachment managers filed their pretrial memo claiming Sicknick died from a head injury, that indicated that Sicknick died from a stroke.
McCarthy called into question why Democrats’ included a contested claim in their evidence.
What’s more, Sicknick’s eldest brother, Ken Sicknick, told ProPublica in January that his brother texted him the night of the riot to let him know that he was “in good shape.”
“He texted me last night and said, ‘I got pepper-sprayed twice,’ and he was in good shape,” Ken Sicknick said. “Apparently he collapsed in the Capitol and they resuscitated him using CPR.”
Although the text does not explain how Sicknick died, Ken Sicknick is certain that his brother perished protecting the Capitol that day.
“He spent his life trying to help other people,” Sicknick’s brother insisted. “This political climate got my brother killed.”
Despite the lack of clarity surrounding Sicknick’s cause of death, a police officer was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher while defending the Capitol, an incident that was cited by Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO) during the trial:
McCarthy said certainty over Sicknick’s death is necessary if the Senate trial is to be fair and hold those responsible accountable.
Clearly, if Officer Sicknick died because of something the rioters did, that is a serious matter. If that happened, former President Trump should be accountable, because he was instrumental in arranging the January 6 rally that turned violent, because he stirred up his supporters with provocative rhetoric, and because — as commander in chief of the armed forces — he failed to take action to repel the siege on the Capitol.
But if it did not happen the way the House Democratic impeachment manners have represented that it happened, we should be told that — and be told why such an inflammatory allegation was made in the impeachment article and repeated in the pretrial memo.
Capitol Police did release a statement on Jan. 7 unequivocally stating that that Sicknick had been “injured while physically engaging with protesters,” adding that he collapsed as a result of those injuries and died the next day in a local hospital.
Despite holes in the theory that Sicknick was struck by a fire extinguisher on Jan. 6, the New York Times story reported he died from such an injury has not been updated.
