A letter sent to the acting chief of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), highlighting the recent medical examiner ruling that Officer Sicknick died of natural causes.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s letter contains pertinent questions as the official ruling from the medical examiner appears to be at odds with the USCP’s statement from January 7, 2021. Their statement noted that Officer Sicknick died from “injuries sustained while on-duty” after “physically engaging with protestors” at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Several reports were showing police shooting Trump supporters, and on another, Capitol cops playing “tour guides” letting everyone in and escorting them around the place.
And on top of all that, we hear there were “stand-down” orders for police – was that to create as much of a melee as possible?
It was previously reported that Officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death by a Trump supporter. Which now seems to be fake news.
It turned out that Sicknick died due to natural causes.
Since January 2021, Senator Johnson has sent several oversight letters to different agencies regarding the breach at the Capitol. He has written to the acting and former House and Senate sergeants at arms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, USCP, the U.S. Architect of the Capitol, and the Washington, D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Excerpts from Senator Johnson’s April 22, 2021, letter to the USCP are below and the full letter can be found here.
“This finding raises more questions about what USCP knew and what actions USCP took to confirm certain facts regarding Officer Sicknick’s death before it released its January 7 statement.”
“It remains unclear why the USCP released a statement regarding Officer Sicknick’s cause of death months before the medical examiner made an official determination. Following USCP’s claim that Officer Sicknick died ‘due to injuries sustained while on-duty,’ false reports about those injuries began to emerge.”
“The death of any police officer is a tragedy and the use of any officer’s death for political purposes or to create a false narrative is reprehensible and disrespectful to the officer’s family and the officer’s memory.”
But it wasn’t just the Times who got it wrong.
The Capitol police did as well, they claimed their own office had been physically “injured” injured the melee and that’s how he died. That never happened; the medical examiner said Officer Sicknick had no injuries on his body whatsoever.
This is what Senator Ron Johnson wants to know. Just The News is reporting that Johnson is now demanding that the Capitol Police explain why it initially reported that Officer Brian Sicknick died from injuries sustained in the Jan. 6 riot when in fact his death was ruled to be naturally caused by strokes.
“The death of any police officer is a tragedy and the use of any officer’s death for political purposes or to create a false narrative is reprehensible and disrespectful to the officer’s family and the officer’s memory,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wrote in a letter to Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda D. Pittman.
Johnson’s letter specifically zeroed in on a Jan. 7 statement the police force issued claiming Sicknick died from “injuries sustained while on-duty after physically engaging with protestors” during the riot.
The senator noted earlier this week that the Washington DC Chief Medical Examiner Francisco Diaz concluded that Sicknick “suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters” and that his body exhibited “no evidence of internal or external injuries.”
Johnson, the top Republican on the powerful Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, also challenged subsequent reporting claiming Sicknick may have suffered a fatal reaction and died from bear pepper spray dispersed by the rioters.
“Dr. Diaz stated that Sicknick’s autopsy found no evidence that he suffered an allergic reaction to chemical irritants,” Johnson wrote.
The senator suggested the initial police statement and erroneous reporting led to “false reports” in the public — including that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher — that persisted for three months until the autopsy findings.
Sources: WAYNE DUPREE, RON JOHNSON