Former President Donald Trump is being sued for allegedly causing the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick on January 6.
Sandra Garza, the late Brian Sicknick’s girlfriend, is suing Trump and two Capitol riot defendants and demanding that each of them pay $10 million, according to the lawsuit filed on Thursday. In a peculiar twist, Garza’s lawyer says that any damages awarded in the lawsuit will be donated to charity.
The lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of directly inciting “the violence at the U.S. Capitol that followed and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun.”
“After Defendant Trump’s speech ended, insurgents charged the hill surrounding the U.S. Capitol and began scaling the building’s outer walls. Officers reported rioters were attacking them with metal poles. Law enforcement and local leaders put out calls for help. Officers called for reinforcements as the mob pulled down the gates erected to protect the U.S. Capitol and attacked officers,” the lawsuit states.
Donald Trump told the audience members attending his January 6 speech to “peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.” The first incursion at the capitol occurred at 12:53 p.m. at the Northwest side of the Capitol. The NY Times claims that Trump’s “call to action” was at 1:12 p.m. This is nearly twenty minutes after the first breach of the barricades. The speech was a mile and a half away from the capitol.
Thus, the Trump “incitement” accusation is plainly frivolous and defamatory. Even more inflammatory is the baseless accusation that Donald Trump, and indeed, any of the Capitol event participants, had caused Sicknick’s death.
Dr. Francisco J. Diaz, the medical examiner in the Sicknick case, found that the officer had died of natural causes. He told The Washington Post that “the autopsy found no evidence that Officer Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals nor of any internal or external injuries.”
One day before former President Trump’s impeachment acquittal, the New York Times corrected the Democrat-led prosecution’s false claim about Sicknick’s cause of death being do to a violent attack.
The February 12, 2021 update pinned to the top of the Jan. 8 article “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage” soft-peddles the fact that the press based highly charged stories about the “deadly” January 6 event based on the erroneous assumption that rioters had killed the officer.
“New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police,” the editorial comment states.
As the Washington Examiner notes, there was an addition to the story: “Law enforcement officials initially said Mr. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher, but weeks later, police sources and investigators were at odds over whether he was hit. Medical experts have said he did not die of blunt force trauma, according to one law enforcement official.”
The Times initially described Sicknick’s death as having occurred due to an attack by “Trump loyalists.”
“Mr. Sicknick, 42, an officer for the Capitol Police, died on Thursday from brain injuries he sustained after Trump loyalists who overtook the complex struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials,” the Times initially wrote.
Even the Times article purportedly correcting the original Jan. 8 report was misleading.
“Investigators have found little evidence to back up the attack with the fire extinguisher as the cause of death, the official said. Instead, they increasingly suspect that a factor was Officer Sicknick being sprayed in the face by some sort of irritant, like mace or bear spray, the law enforcement official said,” the piece claimed.
The New York Times eventually reported what really happened: His death was attributed neither to blunt force trauma nor to chemical irritants.
“Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick had multiple strokes hours after sparring with a pro-Trump mob during the Jan. 6 riot and died of natural causes, Washington’s medical examiner said on Monday,” the Times reported.
“The determination likely complicates the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of Mr. Sicknick, 42; two men have been charged with assaulting him by spraying an unknown chemical on him outside the Capitol.”
“But the autopsy found no evidence that Officer Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals nor of any internal or external injuries, the medical examiner, Dr. Francisco J. Diaz, told The Washington Post, which first reported his finding.”
A three-judge panel for a U.S. Appeals Court subsequently ordered the release of the Jan. 6 defendant who had been charged with causing the death of Officer Sicknick. The defendant, George Tanios, plead guilty to one count of entering the capitol and one count of disorderly conduct on restricted ground. He will be sentenced on January 13, 2023.
A Trump spokesperson reacted to the lawsuit by stating that “President Trump clearly and unequivocally stated that Americans should ‘peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.’ Yet, Big Tech companies unilaterally censored and suppressed his calls for peace and should thus be held accountable for their appalling actions. By contrast, radical Democrats like Maxine Waters and many others have promoted ultra-violence against conservatives and those who will not bow down their deranged ideology.”
The spokesperson added that “President Trump is immune from frivolous attacks and will continue to be fully focused on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
Follow Kyle Becker on Twitter @kylenabecker.