@
joe438 Trump DID say "very fine people on both sides," I gave the play-by-play elsewhere under this question.
that officers died in the Jan 6 riot
From the debate transcript:
I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was the Vice President-Elect. I was also an acting senator. I was there. And on that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's Capitol, to desecrate our nation's Capitol. On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. And understand, the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason. Who died??
A stroke victim: A Capitol Police release the day after the riots said that USCP Officer Brian Sicknick “passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty.” The report stated that Sicknick “was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed.” He had also been pepper-sprayed by rioters.
Four suicides: U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood, 51, who had been guarding the Capitol for 15 years and was on duty at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He took his own life three days after the riots.
Several days later, D.C. Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, 35, who was injured in the riots on Jan. 6, also committed suicide.
Update, March 21, 2022: On March 7, the District of Columbia’s Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board declared that Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith’s suicide in the days after the Jan. 6 riot was a line-of-duty death. The board concluded “that Officer Smith sustained a personal injury on January 6, 2021, while performing his duties and that his injury was the sole and direct cause of his death.”
In July, six months after the riot at the Capitol, Kyle DeFreytag, 26, was not involved with the clashes with rioters during the breach of the Capitol, but was deployed to the Capitol to help enforce the curfew put in place after the mob had been cleared from the building.
The same day the Metropolitan Police Department announced DeFreytag’s death, it confirmed that another officer, Gunther Hashida, had also committed suicide. Police Department spokesperson Kristen Metzger told CNN that Hashida was assigned to the emergency response team within the special operations division and had helped secure the Capitol on Jan. 6.
