Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes a day after defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 assault, the DC forensic doctor’s office announced Monday. Sicknick was previously believed to have died from injuries sustained during the riot.
Sicknick died of stroke, the chief medical office said in a summary of the report, which cited “acute brainstem and cerebellar infarctions due to acute basilar artery thrombosis.” In an interview with the Washington Post, forensic pathologist Francisco J. Diaz said Sicknick suffered two strokes at the base of the brainstem caused by a clot in an artery.
At approximately 2:20 p.m. Jan. 6, Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical outside the Capitol, the office said. He collapsed eight hours later and died the following evening.
Despite being sprayed with a chemical, it was determined that Sicknick’s form of death was “natural,” the medical office said. In the interview with the Post, Diaz said the autopsy found no evidence of internal or external injuries, or an allergic reaction to the chemical, but said that “everything that happened had a role in their state “.
The “natural” classification is used “when a single disease causes death,” the doctor’s office said in the summary. “If death is accelerated by an injury, the form of death is not considered natural.”
The medical office has not publicly published the full report.
When he first announced Sicknick’s death in January, Capitol police said he died from “injuries sustained during service.”
U.S. Capitol Police via AP
“Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically interacting with protesters,” police said in a statement. “He went back to his division 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 died of natural causes, but said “this does not change the fact that Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty, defending with courage the Congress and the Capitol “.
“U.S. Capitol police will never forget the courage of Officer Sicknick, nor the courage of any officer on Jan. 6, who risked his life to defend our democracy,” the department added.
Two suspects were charged with assaulting Sicknick in March and were charged with deactivating him with a chemical spray.
Sicknick, who joined Capitol police in 2008, was honored at the Capitol weeks after his death, and was remembered as a “peacekeeper” who was “trapped in the wrong place at the time. wrong “.
LEAH MILLIS / AFP through Getty
“Keeping the peace, not just in duty, but in spirit,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader on Sicknick, said during a tribute to Congress in early February. “Talk to your colleagues and they will tell you that Brian was a kind and humble man, with a deep inner strength, the quiet rock of his unity.”
Sicknick was only the fifth private citizen to lie in honor of the Capitol Roundabout, joining Rosa Parks; Billy Graham; and Capitol Police Officer Jacob Chestnut and Capitol Police Detective John Gibson, who were fatally shot at the Capitol in 1998.