Trump supporters and police inside the Capitol Building on January 6.
The acting chief of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has revealed that another officer died in the wake of the D.C. insurrection. The man was identified as MPD officer Jeffrey Smith.
The passing of Capitol police officer Howard Liebengood–the son of a former Senate sergeant-at-arms–was previously reported. MPD Chief Robert Contee did not get into specifics, only saying that Officers Smith and Liebengood were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and took their own lives in the aftermath of the insurrection.
“Five people lost their lives on January 6th – Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and four others,” acting chief MPD Chief Robert Contee said in remarks dated Tuesday for the House of Representatives. “And tragically, two officers who were at the Capitol on January 6th, one each from the Capitol Police and MPD, took their own lives in the aftermath of that battle. We honor the service and sacrifices of Officers Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood, and Jeffery Smith, and offer condolences to all the grieving families.”
Supporters of then-President Donald Trump raided the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 after he held a rally where he repeated the lie that he actually won the 2020 presidential election. The Capitol invaders postponed but did not prevent Congress from counting Electoral College votes for current POTUS Joe Biden. Five people died amid the chaos, however.
- The death of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick is being investigated as a possible murder. Law enforcement reportedly says Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher. He died from his injuries the day after the insurrection. He was a veteran critical of the Iraq war; a former staffer for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said he was a Trump supporter. By all accounts, he was at the Capitol that day just doing his job.
- As seen on video, Trump supporter and California woman Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer in the neck as she climbed through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby. A group of rioters were trying to bust through the barricaded doors. Babbitt’s social media activity showed she was an ardent proponent of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory popular among certain Trump supporters.
The MPD initially described the rest of the deaths as “medical emergencies,” but it reportedly turned out that one of the people died amid violent circumstances.
- Like Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, 34, was a Trump supporter and QAnon proponent. She was reportedly tramped by rioters before her death. Her brother-in-law Justin Cave blamed the now-former president for her death, saying Trump’s words “incited a riot that killed four of his biggest fans,” meaning Boyland, Babbitt, Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips.
- Greeson, 55, went to the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, according to a ProPublica report. More than ten years later, the Alabama resident and Democrat had become a Trump supporter. He died of a heart attack outside of the Capitol.
- Phillips, 50, is said to have died of a stroke, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. “It seems like the first day of the rest of our lives, to be honest,” he said in the report, on the drive to D.C. “They should name this year Zero because something will happen.”
A Georgia man, Christopher Stanton Georgia, died by suicide days after he was arrested in D.C. in connection with the events of Jan. 6.
[Image via Brent Stirton/Getty Images]