Capitol rioter caught hitting officer with fire extinguisher in viral video
Simultaneously, the crowd continues to chant 'USA!' as chaos ensues all around them.
As the public continues to learn more about the Trump supporters who took over the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, new footage has emerged that shows a rioter hitting an officer in the head with a fire extinguisher during the melee.
According to the New York Post, the clip obtained by Storyful shows a sea of MAGA supporters aggressively pushing past a barricade as U.S. Capitol Police tries in futility to keep them corralled on the west side of the building.
READ MORE: Patriots coach Bill Belichick turns down Presidential Medal of Freedom
“They broke through, it’s on!” one man is heard yelling at the beginning of the video.
You can see a rioter forcefully throwing an officer over the barricade with little no remorse. A few moments later, another rioter is seen hurling a fire extinguisher directly at a group of officers before striking one on the helmet.
Simultaneously, the crowd continues to chant “USA!” as chaos ensues all around them.
“There’s a guy, like, dying over there,” a witness can be heard yelling on the clip. “They’re trying to hold him up.”
It has yet to be confirmed if the man in the video was Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. But two law enforcement sources informed the Associated Press that Sicknick died at a hospital Thursday after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. A source has reported that authorities have now launched a probe into Sicknick’s death.
“The entire USCP Department expresses its deepest sympathies to Officer Sicknick’s family and friends on their loss, and mourns the loss of a friend and colleague,” the department said in an official press release which also acknowledges he was injured “while physically engaging with protesters.”
Four other people succumbed to fatal injuries during the siege, including a California woman shot by Capitol Police and three others who experienced medical emergencies.
An inside job?
As we previously reported, last week, a Washington D.C police officer came forward to make stunning allegations about off-duty police officers and even some members of the military being among the rioters who took part in Wednesday’s siege.
“If these people can storm the Capitol building with no regard to punishment, you have to wonder how much they abuse their powers when they put on their uniforms,” the officer making the allegations wrote in a public Facebook post.
READ MORE: Airbnb banning rioters, hate groups ahead of inauguration
He went on to allege that the officers in question covertly flashed their badges and identification cards at on-duty officers as they joined in on the attempt to overrun the U.S. Capitol.
Despite other accounts corroborating this assertion and numerous videos circulating on social media of officers fraternizing with the rioters – at times even stopping to take selfies with them – D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee maintained that the department was unprepared for the violence.
Thursday, Contee said in a press conference that there was “no intelligence that suggested there would be a breach of the U.S. Capitol.”
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s new podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. Download theGrio today!
