We don’t know what caused Sicknick’s death, whether the arrested men caused it, and why the medical report remains incomplete.
We don’t know what caused Sicknick’s death, whether the arrested men caused it, and why the medical report remains incomplete.
O n Monday, the FBI, as NR’s Tobias Hoonhout reports, arrested two men on charges arising out of their alleged assault on Officer Brian Sicknick at the January 6 Capitol riot. Officer Sicknick, who served in the Capitol Police, died the day after the melee. The two defendants, Julian Elie Khater and George Pierre Tanios, were arrested over the weekend on a complaint that was sworn to by an FBI agent back on March 6.
Khater and Tanios appeared on the charges via video-conference Monday in federal district court in Washington, D.C. They are detained pending further bail proceedings.
The most notable aspect of the complaint is that it neither charges murder nor alleges that the defendants caused Officer Sicknick’s death. The complaint accuses Khater of spraying Sicknick and two other police officers with an unknown substance, which he’d retrieved from Tanios’s backpack.
In claims that have since been walked back, the New York Times initially reported that Sicknick had been “killed by a pro-Trump mob” that “overpowered” him and “struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher,” resulting in his being “rushed to the hospital and placed on life support” with a “bloody gash in his head.” Congressional Democrats relied on the Times’ reporting in alleging, in the House impeachment article, that after rioters were “incited by President Trump,” they “injured and killed law enforcement personnel.”
Relying on unnamed “authorities,” the Washington Post reports that 139 police officers were assaulted by the mob on January 6. Officer Sicknick, however, is the only law-enforcement official who died in the wake of the incident. Even with arrests now made in the assault against him, the government has yet to allege that anyone “killed” him. Other than citing the Times in a pretrial memorandum, the Democratic impeachment managers never explained the basis for their allegation.
As I’ve previously outlined, other reporting indicates that Officer Sicknick returned to his headquarters after the riot (i.e., he was not rushed to the hospital from the Capitol); that he told his brother in text messages the night of January 6 that he was “in good shape” despite being “pepper sprayed twice”; and that he died from a stroke.
If he did have a stroke, we don’t know whether or not it was related to the assault on the Capitol. So far, however, the FBI and federal prosecutors have not claimed that the riot even contributed to Sicknick’s death, much less caused it.
Strangely, the complaint against Khater and Tanios does not even mention that Officer Sicknick died. In fact, a section of the complaint entitled, “Injuries to Officers,” indicates that Sicknick did not appear to have been very seriously hurt.
That section on injuries recounts that Sicknick and two other officers, Capitol Police Officer C. Edwards and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer D. Chapman, “were temporarily blinded,” rendering them “incapacitated and unable to perform their duties for at least 20 minutes or longer while they recovered from the spray.” The complaint relates that “Officer Edwards reported lasting injuries underneath her eyes, including scabbing that remained on her face for weeks” — which suggests it has since healed.
As for Officer Sicknick, the section on injuries states that he “reported to his supervisors and colleagues that he had been sprayed in the face with a substance.” The type of spray is not identified, but Officers Edwards and Chapman describe it as “as strong as, if not stronger than, any version of pepper spray they had been exposed to during their training.” Elsewhere the complaint describes the spray as “toxic” and suggests it may have been “bear spray.” Apparently, the precise chemical composition has not been determined.
According to the Associated Press, the medical examiner’s report on Sicknick’s death is “incomplete” and “Capitol Police say they are awaiting toxicology results.” The Post adds that autopsy results for Sicknick are still pending, and that the case has not been classified as a homicide.
This all seems awfully peculiar. The complaint that came to public notice on Monday was sworn out two months after the riot and Sicknick’s death. The officer’s death was made central to an article of impeachment against a then-sitting president of the United States. The Democratic House impeachment managers, after four weeks of investigating the riot as they prepared for the Senate trial, expressly alleged in their pretrial brief that “the insurrectionists killed a Capitol Police officer by striking him in the head with a fire extinguisher” (memo p. 28 & n.131).
Given the significance of the rioting at the Capitol and the death of a police officer, how is it that the completion of these reports was not expedited?
If the AP is correct, there is not yet a conclusion on the cause of Sicknick’s death. The AP reports that investigators are operating on a theory that “Sicknick may have ingested a chemical substance — possibly bear spray — that may have contributed to his death.” But such a theory would have to account for the fact that the two other officers sprayed at the same time do not appear to have sustained life-threatening injuries — just as Sicknick did not seem, at the time, to have sustained such injuries. If legal proceedings show that reporting on the cause of Officer Sicknick’s death is inconclusive or contested, then it must be noted — though it’s obviously uncomfortable to mention — that Sicknick was cremated very shortly after the completion of whatever analyses were done on his remains.
Another striking thing about the complaint is how thin the case against defendant Tanios appears to be.
Based on video and audio recordings, the complaint recounts that while the two men stood outside the Capitol, Khater told Tanios to “give me that bear sh*t,” while reaching into the latter’s backpack. Tanios responded, “Hold on . . . not yet … its [sic] still early,” but Khater is then heard “emphatically telling Tanios, ‘They just f***ing sprayed me.’” Khater was then “seen holding a white can with a black top that appears to be a can of chemical spray.” But notice that the complaint does not say for certain that Khater retrieved the can from Tanios’s backpack — that is a crucial inference the court is asked to draw.
Tanios never appears again in the action portion of the complaint. Only Khater is seen minutes later appearing to use the same can to spray the officers (and the surveillance footage also shows him being sprayed by one of the officers — as depicted in “Figure Five” on page 5 of the complaint). Tanios is nowhere in sight, and it is not alleged that he sprayed anyone. The complaint nevertheless asserts that the earlier
verbal exchange between Khater and Tanios, together with Khater’s retrieval of a spray can from Tanios, reveals that the two were working in concert and had a plan to use the toxic spray against law enforcement.
These deductions are not irrational. Yet, they are not overwhelming, to say the least, particularly the inference of a conspiracy to attack the police. From Tanios’s perspective, he is being charged with multiple violent felonies for nothing more than his (apparent) possession of bear spray in a backpack — which he will undoubtedly say, based on the FBI’s own evidence, that he discouraged Khater from taking and using.
The two men are charged with conspiring to injure or impede federal officers. Tanios is also charged in Khater’s assaults on federal officers with a dangerous weapon — obviously, as an aider and abettor. The two are also charged with various offenses involving interference with congressional proceedings and acts of violence on federal property.
The charges are very serious, exposing the defendants to potential decades of imprisonment. Whether the charges will become even more serious by being causally linked to Officer Sicknick’s death, and whether the charges against Tanios will hold up, are matters that warrant close attention.