The FBI has interviewed 37 people in the killing of officer Brian Sicknick, who was fatally injured as Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to an FBI memo.
Sicknick, 42, joined the New Jersey National Guard in 1997 in hopes of becoming a police officer. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until he was honorably discharged in 2003. He graduated from his Capitol Police training in 2008 and almost immediately afterward, worked the inauguration of former President Barack Obama.
“He spent his life trying to help other people,” the officer’s eldest brother told ProPublica. “This political climate got my brother killed.”
Sicknick was bludgeoned by a fire extinguisher as the violent mob swarmed the building, law enforcement officials said. He reportedly texted his family after the protesters had been cleared.
“He texted me last night and said, ‘I got pepper-sprayed twice,’ and he was in good shape,” Ken Sicknick, his brother, told ProPublica. “Apparently he collapsed in the Capitol and they resuscitated him using CPR.”
But the next day, the family received word that Sicknick was in critical condition at a hospital, after suffering a blood clot and stroke.
The rally, which came on the same day that Congress was scheduled to certify President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory, involved Trump supporters who believed false rhetoric that the election was “rigged” or “stolen.”
Four other individuals died as a result of the pro-Trump mob — one woman who was shot by Capitol Police and three from “medical emergencies.”
According to the FBI memo, another 14 Capitol Police officers were injured in the riot.
