Deadly riots
Have you noticed that very often when the MSM or Democrats refer to the Capitol riot the word “riot” is modified by the word “deadly”? And of course, this is correct: the riots were deadly. But what do we know about those deaths? Very little.
Surprisingly little, considering that nearly three weeks have passed, and the investigations and coverage have been nothing if not intense. And yet, for the most part, the initial “fog of war” reports have not been substantially modified.
By saying the riots were deadly – and often adding that five people were killed – the reader is encouraged to forget the extent and nature of the deaths and imagine that the rioters killed five people. If you stop to think about it you might realize that’s not the case, but who stops to think about it?
Three of those deaths were described this way in a January 7 article:
Those people were Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia; Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama; and Benjamin Phillips, 50, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania, the Metropolitan Police Department said.
Boyland collapsed at the Capitol, where police performed CPR, 11Alive.com reported. She was taken to a hospital, but did not survive.
Greeson’s family said in a statement that the Trump supporter suffered a heart attack during the chaos, The News Courier reported.
Phillips, who had organized a group to drive to Washington, D.C., from his home state, died of an apparent stroke after being taken to George Washington University Hospital, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Those natural causes of death are rarely made clear or even mentioned in articles that focus on the riots themselves and call them “deadly.”
We know about the death of Ashli Babbit at the hands of a member of the Capitol Police. She definitely did not die of natural causes. But in her case it was actually the reaction to the riot on the part of authorities that was deadly. Her actions (trying to climb through a broken window inside the Capitol) seem to have precipitated that deadly force, but whether the force exerted had to be deadly is not at all clear and is currently being investigated. In any event, the mob didn’t kill her.
Which leaves Capitol Police Officer Sicknick as the one person who may in fact have been killed by rioters. But was he? And if so, by whom and under what circumstances? We know very little, officially, although there are certainly rumors.
Some people may think reports such as this one, of arrests of rioters who allegedly tried “to crush an officer who was pinned by a mob as it tried to break into the building,” are describing the death of Sicknick. There is video of that, and many people have seen the video – but that does not involve Officer Sicknick, and the officer in that video did not die. I have yet to see a single photo or video professing to document what happened to Sicknick, who did die.
Ah, but he was hit in the head by a fire extinguisher and died because of that, right? Many many news outlets and blogs have reported it that way, but I have yet to see anything about the source of that report. One thing that seems apparent is that the source was not the official statement of the Capitol Police. Their press statement can be found here. The way it’s written you simply cannot tell what happened, except that some injury to the officer seems to have occurred while the riot was ongoing and he was engaging with protestors. It doesn’t say his injury was sustained at anyone’s hands, it does not say what the injury was, it does not say how long it was between the injury and his death, it does not say why his injury did not cause him to go to the hospital and why he just went back to his division office, and it does not mention a fire extinguisher. It also does not say on what basis the Capitol Police concluded he died of that injury or injuries, as opposed to some other cause such as a heart attack:
At approximately 9:30 p.m. this evening (January 7, 2021), United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty.
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. He returned to his division office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
It is being investigated, but it’s been nearly three weeks and I’ve not seen any updates. It is certainly possible we will some day learn that he was indeed hit by a fire extinguisher or some other object at the hands of rioters, that such rioters were on the right rather than Antifa agitators, and that he died as a result of those blows. But none of that is in evidence now. And yet if you were to poll most people who know about Sicknick’s death at all, I bet the vast majority of them think that all of that has been proven already and that right-wing Capitol insurrectionists killed Sicknick by beating him with a fire extinguisher.
Here’s some typical coverage that attempts to link those dots. It’s from Yahoo:
Sicknick died last Thursday at the hospital, where he was being treated for “injuries sustained while on-duty,” USCP said in a statement. More specifically, this officer was violently struck with a fire extinguisher during the pro-Trump riots at the Capitol on Wednesday.
That first link is about the Capitol Police report, which says nothing about the fire extinguisher (as I’ve already explained). That second link goes to a Business Insider article that, like so many similar articles, merely states the fire extinguisher story without sourcing it at all. The intent of the juxtaposition by the reporter seems clear to me, which is to get the reader to think the fire extinguisher story is official as well, and perhaps comes from the Capitol Police. But I certainly can’t find a link that would back that up. If you can find one, let me know.
It may be that in time we’ll learn this is actually a true story. We may even learn who is alleged to have struck Sicknick with a fire extinguisher. But maybe not. And I wouldn’t sit on a hot stove till we learn the truth, and my guess is we’ll never learn it. The “deadly riot” phrase is simply to be stored in our minds to form a certain picture. The narrative has already been set.
The MSM reporting on this really seems to based on a deep belief that “Sources!? We don’t need no stinkeen’ sources!!” They printed it and broadcast it therefore it is TRUE.
Thank you, Neo, for keeping your eye on the ball.
The lack of curiosity from the MSM about the exact circumstances surrounding the death of Sicknick and about the identity of the officer who murdered Ashli Babbitt is yet another manifestation of the crisis in American journalism, legitimate journalists attempting to uncover important information about serious topics being few and far between. Aside from an old article in Newsweek and Steve Hilton’s excellent piece on Fox, there has been almost nothing in the MSM about the evidence strongly suggesting that Fauci encouraged and funded highly risky gain-of-function, manipulation-of-virus research at the lab in Wuhan which resulted, by means of lax safety precautions, in the unleashing of the pandemic on the world; nor has there been much recent reporting on the squalid financial operations and the possible political entanglements of the non-suicidal J Epstein.
Yes, I had noticed the pervasive garnishing of Jan 6th stories with the word ‘deadly’, and came to the same conclusion. Nor have I seen the word ‘illegal’ or ‘violent’ or ‘deadly’ being used in any of the events of Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland, etc etc. where violent behavior and rampant property destruction is the currency, the overarching theme, and the behavior of choice. I’m surprised that the Right Wing news stations haven’t responded with a similar tactic, using ‘patriotic rally’ instead.
And now I see we have 5 GOPe Senators have chosen to support the Impeachment: …” The five Republicans senators who joined Democrats were Susan Collins, of Maine; Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska; Mitt Romney, of Utah; Ben Sasse, of Nebraska; and Pat Toomey, of Pennsylvania”.
I don’t mind so much that they are political turncoats to Trump – they have an established political track record for that – but I care deeply that they have betrayed the US Constitution, which they swore an oath to uphold as Conservatives. They are betrayers specifically of its rules regarding Presidential Impeachment and of the well-precedented definitions of First Amendment Speech and its protections. They’re no better than Leftist Democrats and should be treated so, and punished for calling themselves Republicans.
We don’t even know the name of the shooter. We immediately knew the names of the officers — all falsely accused — in the cases of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, et al. Their names are still wel known and their lives are ruined.
sheldon:
Indeed.
I’m actually for protecting the names of such shooters while investigations are ongoing. But there is a definite double standard here.
they have an established political track record for that
Sasse, Romney, and Murkowski, yes. Collins is more ambiguous. Toomey, no.
Her actions (trying to climb through a broken window inside the Capitol)
I’m looking at the video and I’m not seeing anyone climbing through the window.
The post-mortem on Ofc. Sicknick has been done, but we do not see the report. After Freddie Gray, Jeffrey Epstein, and George Floyd, we’ve seen that coroners can be suborned and write conclusory statements inconsistent with salient pieces of evidence.
Their names are still wel known and their lives are ruined.
Liberal politics in our time has been reduced to socially-sanctioned aggression. It has no other dimension left.
Neo, most of your list of questions remain unanswered. The silence is becoming deafening.
They were killed by crickets.
Art+Deco,
There are a couple of videos that show her trying to crawl through the broken window. Black clad antifa types hammered on the door’s two windows and broke through one. They then stepped back allowing Babbit to pull herself up and slide one leg through the window. As she went to place her head and shoulders through the window, her murderer shot her from 3-4ft away. He deliberately aimed at her head/neck area, not center mass as all officers are trained. Right behind her not 5 ft away were several cops dressed in riot gear who made no move to stop her. Even after she was shot, they just stood there.
Additional circumstances are relevant and lend credence to it being an ordered execution. A bit earlier video shows 3-4 white plain clothes officers standing behind a large desk(?) set up as a barricade against the door. The guy who shot her was black and the barricade had been removed… given the intent of the barricade, there was no rational reason for its removal.
This was simply a planned execution.
Geoffrey:
Agree, good summation of the extrajudicial summary execution.
Ashli Babbitt RIP
American Thinker poses additional questions about the increasingly mysterious death of Ashli Barrett:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/who_shot_ashli_babbitt_.html
I’ll put a little MD take on the “deadly DC riot”.
As Neo has detailed, three people in the “huddled masses” outside the Capitol died of natural cardiovascular events.
What I have learned about Officer Sicknick is he got hit on the head with a fire extinguisher, did not lose consciousness, went back to his office, deteriorated neurologically some hours later,
which is when he was hospitalized. This is all consistent with a
temporal skull fracture with laceration of the middle meningeal artery, the bleed from which caused an epidural hematoma (a bloody mass) that compressed the brain. He just got to care too late.
The case of Ashli Babbitt, an American female and notable USAF veteran, age 31, was flat out murder by cop. I’ve seen videos that show her standing, unarmed, in a crowd inside the Capitol, when the Cap. cop fired a SINGLE shot from a few feet behind her, striking her in her upper neck. Now if she’d been black we would hear the rage, but instead, dead silence.
So much for the “deadly riot”.
Thanks, MSM. Journalists used to want to know what occurred. No more.
Cicero:
That’s a possible scenario for Sicknick, except that we don’t know he was hit in the head by a fire extinguisher or anything else for that matter. It has been widely reported but is completely unsourced. No one official has said it. If you have a link or source that I’ve missed, please provide it. I haven’t seen any so far.
When I first heard of Sicknick and the fire extinguisher, I immediately thought it might resemble the death of the actress Natasha Richardson. That is what you are positing, as well. If the fire extinguisher story is correct, that is an obvious strong possibility (as I said, even as a non-medical person it’s the one that occurred to me). But we have no idea as yet about the fire extinguisher or any other head blow.
By the way, when I was in junior high school a schoolmate died that way – not the fire extinguisher, but the rest. He was in a fistfight, fell and hit his head, thought all was okay, went home and died a few hours later. It was impressed on all of us back then how dangerous that could be.
This was reported by ABC news on January 8. Haven’t seen any follow up since.
According to sources familiar with the matter, authorities believe Sicknick’s death was driven by a medical condition.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/capitol-police-officer-dies-injuries-suffered-riots/story?id=75124131
RockMeAle:
Yes, I saw that article back then but never saw any follow-up. I couldn’t find the article again today, so thanks for locating it.
“A police officer with the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) died after he suffered a stroke at the Capitol during riots, according to US Capitol Police in a late statement Thursday night.”
“The officer that died is Brian D. Sicknick. He was a 15-year veteran of the force and 40 years old. No information was given on where the officer was stationed around the Capitol on Wednesday as a mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol.”
This was reported on Jan. 8.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/national/us-capitol-police-officer-dies-stroke-riots/285-0d4f3e9c-63be-4f5b-a8f8-208dbd33a85f
Then there is this:
His death was driven by a medical condition.
https://federalinquirer.com/update-dc-officer-sicknicks-death-was-driven-by-medical-condition/
The LEO that shot Ashli Babbitt has been tentatively identified but it has not been officially corroborated as far as I can tell. If it is this person, he has a long history in this role and has made the news before in circumstances that have gained him recognition for line-of-duty heroism, both positive and well-deserved. This may be a case of the authorities wanting to be careful and comprehensive and absolutely certain in their process – not necessarily a cover-up, in other words.
Why hasn’t there been a Deadly Riot about this?
https://vdare.com/articles/michelle-malkin-the-matter-of-tori-rose-smith-s-life
How many of you even know that this happened?
A system which amps up certain things and covers up other things is not going to be fixed by the asking of questions alone. A polity this sick and depraved and unnatural can only be cleansed by fire. Granted a thousand-fold that the questions do need to be asked first in order that people are given some opportunity to wake up.
OK, the KHOU-11 story appears legitimate, but the Federal Enquirer appears to be a propaganda site, so I would discount it.
Aggie,
No way was the shot that killed Ashli Babbitt a righteous shooting. Her murderer was so close to her that he could have easily shot her in the shoulder. The close up video also shows his hands steady as a rock, so he wasn’t stressed out or panicked. He shot with full intent to kill Ashli Babbitt.
One consequence to the Feds long record of lying and corruption is that there’s no basis for believing that ‘authorities’ have acted honestly. Nothing they state can be accepted at face value. They’ve repeatedly proven themselves to be corrupt liars.
I picked up this link from a commenter at another of Sarah Hoyt’s posts.
He picks up something that has kind of been glossed over in the discussion of false-flag Antifa provocateurs dressed up as Trump supporters.
His question is about the curious incident of the dog in the night.
Q: What was conspicuously missing at the Capitol on January 6?
A: Identifiable and obnoxious counter-protesters harassing the Trump rally goers.
They have been at every gathering of conservatives forever, and especially if Trump-MAGA supporters are involved.
Why weren’t they out doing their thing on that one particular day?
Why didn’t the dog bark?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5QfaDM-qyY&feature=youtu.be
He also goes into some rather more speculative theories (which prior to 2016 I would have labeled “tin foil hat”), but I think the first one is very legitimate.
I am also seeing references in news stories to “rioters” being “armed,” but have seen nothing about guns being fired (except by police) or even brandished. Maybe “armed” with clubs or other objects? As usual, there is slippery usage on the part of the news media, aimed at creating an effect, just as they have begun to commonly refer to five deaths occurring in the “melee.”
James S:
They certainly were armed, but the Feds have fingered the guilty after they legged it out of the Capitol :).
Were there any firearms, you ask?
Doesn’t seem so, but there were broken windows (or at least one) and “speech is violence.”
It was mostly peaceful after Ashli Babbitt was terminated with extreme prejudice (executed) by an unidentified public servant.
Excellent post, neo. It’s a true shame our newspapers and television media don’t produce investigative journalism like this. It’s sensationalism and rage and quickly onto the next, shiny thing.
From day one, the press never failed to characterize it as “Trump’s false claims of voter fraud”, Even local newscasters. It was obvious they were all singing from the same hymnal, and they never missed a beat.
Today one could be forgiven for thinking “deadly riot” is one word. Of course that term could have been applied to the “mostly peaceful” protests of the summer, which included an attempt to storm the White House.
The KHOU-11 story of Jan 8 states, “Outside of the officer’s death, four initials deaths were reported from the riots Wednesday, including the fatal shooting of a woman by Capitol Police. She was shot when climbing into the House Chamber, according to information released by DC Police. Three others died from medical emergencies, DC Police said.” The DC Police said, yep. Can’t exclude race from the matter; the cop was black and in DC the large majority of cops are black Democrats, as is the majority of residents of DC..
The video I saw of the shooting showed Ashli well inside the building, standing, just standing, near an interior wall, on the periphery of a group of maybe 20. If she was facing to 12 o’clock, her single shot Cap cop shooter was behind her at 5 o’clock, so she could not see him. He gave no verbal order to her or anyone else before shooting a single shot. Handgun and police training uniformly emphasize emptying a pistol at “center of mass”, the thorax, which he surely did not do. And only when threatened with immediate deadly force is such shooting lawfully justifiable.
The Capitol Police now claim Sicknick died of a “stroke”, their words. But Sicknick was only 40 years old! Remotely likely. I do not recall where I read that he’d been struck in the head with an extinguisher, but all the MSM reported he had died of “injuries”, felt OK enough to go back to his office, and some unspecified time later was taken to hospital, where he died that evening. Possibly he ruptured a congenital intracranial berry aneurysm spontaneously but that gives immediate, severe symptoms and requires emergency craniotomy, despite which it can still be fatal. I still hold to my epidural hematoma thesis.
As to Aggie’s “This (Babbitt’s murder by cop) may be a case of the authorities wanting to be careful and comprehensive and absolutely certain in their process”, all I can say is HaHa, sure!
Here’s an interesting podcast with Bret Weinstein and Jeremy Quinn, a self-identified journalist on the left who went into the Capitol with protestors and describes what he saw.
He had a phone, so there should also be video to back up his story. It’s long, and he starts repeating himself after an hour or so, but interesting to here it from a different perspective.
One thing that stands out is he says the protestors took on a lot of the attributes of the antifa/blm riots during the summer, which he says he also covered– but also says he did not see antifa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJdjO0fD4E
Totally unrelated, but another interesting podcast with two unlikely characters is Glenn Beck and Eric Weinstein, Bret’s brother, another honest leftist. He, like his brother has nothing good to say about cancel culture and it’s effects on or culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOUJKuTKReg
US Capitol police officers recount riot: ‘We were on our own’
The officers who spoke to the AP said they were given next to no warning by leadership on the morning of Jan. 6 about what would become a growing force of thousands of rioters, many better armed than the officers themselves were. And once the riot began, they were given no instructions by the department’s leaders on how to stop the mob or rescue lawmakers who had barricaded themselves inside. There were only enough officers for a routine day.
For major events, the Capitol Police normally holds meetings to brief officers on their responsibilities and plans in case of an emergency. Three of the officers interviewed by the AP said there were no meetings on or before Jan. 6. It’s also unclear whether the department held over its overnight shift or called in more officers early to help those who would be on duty that day.
“During the 4th of July concerts and the Memorial Day concerts, we don’t have people come up and say, ‘We’re going to seize the Capitol,‘” one officer said. “But yet, you bring everybody in, you meet before. That never happened for this event.”
https://www.police1.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/us-capitol-police-officers-recount-riot-we-were-on-our-own-SbwQUiwimYYD4hQY/
“The officers who spoke to the AP said they were given next to no warning by leadership on the morning of Jan. 6 about what would become a growing force of thousands of rioters, many better armed than the officers themselves were.” [my emphasis]
The first emboldened section may very well be true. The second is utter horseshit. It utterly delegitimizes their testimony.
Yeah those SWAT attired Capitol Police with ballistic vests and M4s were overmatched by the “rioters” they were standing beside right before Ashli Babbitt was executed.
Don’t believe your lying eyes or the man behind the window.
The second is utter horseshit. It utterly delegitimizes their testimony.
Their testimony or AP reporting. The latter has precedents.
Yes n. n. the entire article is AP “reporting” and therefore suspect as disinformation.