For months, mainstream media outlets ran with the story that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters, leading to his death. The claim reportedly came from anonymous law enforcement officials, but the U.S. Capitol Police's statement about Sicknick—that he was injured "while physically engaging with protesters"—didn't help. Despite the record being set straight months later by an autopsy report, some outlets never updated their stories while Democrats continued spreading the false claim.
In fact, President Biden has been among the worst offenders. Speaking about the Safer America Plan, Biden relayed a conversation he had with a counterpart at the 47th G7 Summit in England last June, suggesting Trump supporters killed "several police officers."
CLAIM: "And one of them said to me, 'Imagine, Joe, if you turned on the television in Washington, D.C., and saw a mob of a thousand people storming down the hallways of the parliament, breaking down the doors trying to overturn an outcome of election and killing several police officers in the meantime. Imagine. Imagine what you'd think.'"
FACTS: According to a Washington, D.C., medical examiner, Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7 following "two strokes at the base of the brain stem caused by a clot in an artery that supplies blood to that area of the body," The Washington Post reports.
Sicknick was assaulted with bear spray on Jan. 6 and two men have been charged, but neither the medical examiner nor prosecutors tied the chemical substance to his death.
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The medical examiner's office noted, "If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural."
In addition to Sicknick's death, four Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police officers died by suicide in the weeks after the riot.
More than 100 officers were injured that day, but none were killed by Trump supporters.
RATING: While it's impossible to verify which unnamed leader at the G7 allegedly said this to Biden, the president has retold variations of the story numerous times. Assuming he tells the gist of the person's thought experiment to him, the fact remains that no police officers were killed on Jan. 6, making the "killing several police officers" line FALSE, and one which should not be repeated.
