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Authorities ruled that the suicide of a D.C. police officer following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection was a line-of-duty death, giving the widow access to her husband's full pension. The officer, Jeffery Smith, shot himself in the head while driving to work in his first day back.
Authorities have deemed the suicide of a Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffery Smith as a line-of-duty death and have granted the law enforcement officer's widow her late husband's full pension.
The District of Columbia's Police and Firefighters' Retirement and Relief Board wrote in a letter that Smith "sustained a personal injury on January 6, 2021, while performing his duties and that his injury was the sole and direct cause of his death."
Line-of-Duty Death
Furthermore, the board vacated the previous decision that denied the officer's wife, Erin, her survivor's benefits. The annuity that is granted to the widow is equal to her husband's salary while he was working.
For months, Erin spent her time petitioning the D.C. board to declare her husband's suicide as a line-of-duty death. Her attorney, David P. Weber, put forth video evidence that showed Smith being assaulted by a large, angry mob of Trump loyalists. The officer was seen getting hit in the head with a metal pole during the Capitol Hill insurrection, as per The Hill.
Weber noted that Smith committed suicide days after the Capitol Hill riot by shooting himself in the head while he was driving to work from his home in Virginia. He was supposed to make his first day back to the office after seeking medical attention for the injuries and mental trauma he sustained from the insurrection.
The attorney, who is also a forensic accounting professor at Salisbury University in Maryland, said that Smith's case was, from the start, a forensic death investigation. He said that officials did not have knowledge of what happened to the officer at the beginning. Evidence was taken from the autopsy, testimonies from expert witnesses, body camera footage, and federal subpoenas proved that the deceased suffered a traumatic brain injury on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to CNN, last year, Weber said that while Smith's direct cause of death was the bullet he shot into his head, the chain of events caused by the injuries he sustained during the Capitol Hill riot led to the incident. The attorney said that there was no known previous case in which the suicide of a Metropolitan Police officer has been deemed as a link-of-duty death.
Defending the Capitol
Weber added that such a ruling was rare in the context of suicide and said he will use the declaration to request for a memorial service to be held by D.C. police and at the Capitol Rotunda. U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick was laid in honor at the Rotunda after his death following the Capitol Hill insurrection.
Sicknick's death was determined to be from natural causes but authorities arrested two men and charged them with assaulting the officer. United States President Joe Biden was one of the attendees of Sicknick's memorial.
Rep. Don Beyer represents Smith's family in Congress and released a statement on Wednesday night saying he fully supported "full memorial honors for Officer Smith." He added that if the D.C. police officer did not risk his life that day at the Capitol, he would still be alive today, the Washington Post reported.
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