Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes a day after defending the Capitol in the Jan. 6 attack, the DC medical examiner’s office announced Monday. Sicknick was previously believed to have died of injuries sustained during the riot.
Sicknick died of strokes, the chief physician’s office said in a report, citing “acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar arterial thrombosis.” In an interview with The Washington Post, chief medical examiner Francisco J. Diaz said that Sicknick suffered two strokes at the base of his brain stem, caused by a clot in an artery.
At around 2:20 p.m. on 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, Sicknick’s manner of passing was determined to be “ natural, ” the medical examiner’s 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 played a role in his condition.”
The “natural” classification is used “when a disease only causes death,” the medical examiner’s office said in the summary. “When death is hastened by injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.”
The medical examiner’s office has not made the full report public.
When Capitol police first announced Sicknick’s death in January, he said he died of “injuries sustained while on duty.”
United States Capitol Police via AP
Officer Sicknick responded to the riots at the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 and was injured while in physical contact with protesters, police said in a statement. He returned 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 it accepted the finding that Sicknick died of natural causes, but said that “this does not change the fact that Officer Sicknick died on duty and boldly defended Congress and the Capitol.”
“The United States Capitol Police will never forget the courage of Officer Sicknick, nor the courage of any officer on Jan. 6, who risked their lives to defend our democracy,” the department added.
Two suspects were charged with assaulting Sicknick in March and charged with taking him out with a chemical spray.
Sicknick, who first joined the Capitol Police in 2008, lay in honor of the Capitol for weeks after his death and was remembered as a “peacekeeper” who was “caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
LEAH MILLIS / AFP via Getty
“A peacekeeper, not only in duty but also in spirit,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said of Sicknick during a congressional tribute in early February. “Talk to his colleagues and they will tell you that Brian was a kind and humble man, with a deep inner strength, the silent rock of his unity.”
Sicknick was only the fifth private citizen to lie in honor of the Capitol Rotunda and joined 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.