The longtime partner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the Jan. 6 riots, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Thursday against former President Donald Trump and two men involved in the assault on Sicknick.
Sicknick, 42, died one day after the attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. Washington’s chief medical examiner ruled in April 2021 that he died of causes after having suffered two strokes.
The lawsuit, filed by Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza, cites medical examiner comments that “everything that happened” on January 6 “played a role in his condition.”
The civil lawsuit blames Trump for a barrage of lies he told about the election before the riots on January 6 and accuses him of inciting crowd violence.
The lawsuit seeks $10 million from Trump and $10 million each from two men convicted in connection with the assault on Sicknick, Julian Khater and George Tanios.
“Defendant Trump intentionally irritated the crowd and led and encouraged a mob to attack the United States Capitol and attack those who opposed them,” Garza’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. He alleges that Trump and the other two men are responsible for what followed.
The lawsuit says Trump supporters understood his call to show up on January 6: “Be there, you’ll be wild!” — be a call to violence.
January 6, 2021 was the day that Congress met to formally count the electoral votes stating that Trump lost the election.
The lawsuit says that at the January 6 rally, Trump “put his final score” by falsely saying that Vice President Mike Pence could stop that vote and that Trump incited the crowd with inflammatory rhetoric and told them to march on Capitol Hill. .
Khater, who pleaded guilty in September, sprayed Sicknick in the face with bear spray while Sicknick and other officers guarded the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace.
Tanios bought the bear spray Khater used and carried the irritant in his backpack, he admitted in the plea agreement documents. Tanios pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in the deal, neither of which were battery.
Both men are awaiting sentencing.
Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer since 2008 who had previously served in the New Jersey Air National Guard, collapsed at 10 p.m. on Jan. 6 and died at 9:30 p.m. the next day, according to the lawsuit.
capitol police has said that despite the ruling of natural causes, “Sicknick died in the line of duty, courageously defending Congress and the Capitol.”
Sicknick’s body was given the rare distinction of lying with honor in the rotunda of the building.
Lawyers listed as representing Khater and Tanios in their criminal cases did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the civil lawsuit Thursday.
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment Thursday night.
