Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes a day after defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 assault, the DC medical investigating officer announced Monday. Sicknick was earlier thought to have died from injuries sustained during the riot.
Sicknick died of stroke, the medical examining firm’s office said in a summary of the report, referring to ‘acute brainstem and cerebellar infarctions due to acute basilar artery thrombosis.’ In an interview with The Washington Post, Francisco J. Diaz, chief medical examiner, said Sicknick suffered two strokes at the bottom of his brain stem from a blood clot in an artery.
On Jan. 6 at about 2:20 p.m., Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical outside the Capitol, the office said. He collapsed eight hours later and died the next night.
Despite being sprayed with a chemical, Sicknick’s manner of death was ‘natural’, the medical examiner’s office said. In an interview with the Post, Diaz said the autopsy found no evidence of internal or external injuries or of an allergic reaction to the chemical, but said: “everything that happened played a role in his condition. . ”
The ‘natural’ classification is used ‘if a disease alone causes death’, the medical examiner’s office said. “If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.”
The medical examiner’s office did not release the full report.
Announcing Sicknick’s death in January, Capitol police said he had died from “injuries he had on duty”.
United States Capitol Police via AP
“Officer Sicknick is responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically entering into conversation with protesters,” police said in a statement. “He went back to his ward office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.”
In a statement Monday, Capitol police said they accepted the finding that Sicknick had died of natural causes.
“The police in the Capitol of the United States will never forget the bravery of Officer Sicknick, nor the bravery of any officer on January 6 who risked their lives to defend our democracy,” the department added. .
Two suspects are charged with assaulting Sicknick in March and are accused of eliminating him with a chemical spray.
Sicknick, who first joined the Capitol Police in 2008, was honored at the Capitol weeks after his death and is remembered as a ‘peacekeeper’ who was ‘caught in the wrong place at the wrong time’. .
LEAH MILLIS / AFP via Getty
” A peacekeeper, not only in service but also in spirit, ” Senate leader Chuck Schumer said during a tribute to Congress in early February about Sicknick. “Talk to his colleagues, and they will tell you that Brian was a kind and humble man, with deep inner strength, the silent rock of his unity.”
Sicknick was only the fifth private citizen to be honored in the Capitol Rotunda and joined Rosa Parks; Billy Graham; and Capitol Police Officer Jacob Chestnut and Capitol Police Detective John Gibson, who was fatally shot at the Capitol in 1998.