Brian Sicknick has been identified as the United States Capitol Police officer who was killed after being injured in riots as supporters of Donald Trump took over the building on Wednesday.
The department issued a statement noting that Sicknick, who was a 12-year veteran of the department and served in its first responder’s unit and had been an Iraq War veteran, had died on Thursday evening from injuries sustained while on duty the day before. They reported that he had been injured during a scuffle with the rioters.
“Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries,” the statement read. “The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners.”
While the statement gave no further details on the circumstances of Sickinick’s apparent killing, multiple sources reported that he had been bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher and later suffered a stroke as a result.
“The death of Brian D. Sicknick, the US Capitol Police Officer reportedly bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher during the siege of the Capitol, will be investigated as a homicide,” tweeted reporter Ryan Lizza, Politico’s White House correspondent.
The Daily Beast reported that family said Sicknick was placed on a ventilator on Thursday after suffering a blood clot on his brain. Family rushed to the hospital, noting that his prognosis “did not look good.”
A total of four other people died during the siege of the building, including a Trump supporter fatally shot while attempting to climb through a window near the House chambers. The woman, Ashli Babbitt, was reportedly a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory and had tweeted “the storm is here” prior to Wednesday’s rally of Trump supporters backing his unfounded claims of election fraud.
The law enforcement response to the siege has come under sharp scrutiny, with many blaming law enforcement for not properly preparing for the demonstrations. Nancy Pelosi called for the resignation of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and announced that House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving had already resigned. Many have called for an investigation into the reasons for the failures and why the crowd was so easily able to breach the building while Congress was in session.