United States Capitol Police (USCP) Officer Brian D. Sicknick was pronounced dead Thursday evening after succumbing to injuries he sustained in a violent clash with demonstrators during a “Stop the Steal” rally at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
USCP confirmed Sicknick’s death in a press release, stating his death would be investigated as a homicide by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and other federal agencies.
“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,” the USCP read. “He returned to his division office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.”
Sicknick joined the USCP in July 2008 and was most recently assigned to the department’s First Responder Unit.
“The entire USCP Department expresses its deepest sympathies to Officer Sicknick’s family and friends on their loss, and mourns the loss of a friend and colleague,” the USCP said.
Sicknick’s death is the fifth stemming from the violent clashes at the Capitol on Wednesday. One woman, since identified as U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit, was fatally shot by a USCP Officer. Another woman and two men died after what Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officials described as “medical emergencies.”
In a separate Thursday statement, USCP Chief Steven Sund said 50 Capitol police and Metropolitan police officers were injured and several USCP officers are hospitalized with serious injuries.
Sund said, “The USCP had a robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities. But make no mistake – these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior.”
USCP arrested 14 people for unlawful entry at the Capitol on Wednesday, and Acting MPD Chief Robert Contee said at least 52 total people were arrested in connection with the incident at the Capitol, including 26 total on Capitol grounds.
Law enforcement agencies arrested four people for carrying pistols without licenses, and one arrest for possession of a prohibited weapon. Police also found two pipe bombs, one outside the Democratic National Committee office and the other outside the Republican National Committee office.
Law enforcement also found a vehicle parked on Capitol grounds with a cooler containing a long-gun and a Molotov cocktail incendiary device.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump recorded a video statement calling on demonstrators to leave the Capitol. In his video, Trump reiterated his disputes of the 2020 election results, saying “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law [enforcement]. We don’t want anybody hurt.”
Twitter and Facebook both locked Trump’s accounts and removed links to his video statement.
In a White House statement Thursday, Trump said, “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders. America is and must always be a nation of law and order.”
