Trial opens for lawsuit against pardoned Capitol riot defendant over police officer's suicide
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith shot and killed himself while driving to work. Over four years later, Smith's widow is trying to prove to a jury that one of the thousands of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is responsible for her husband's suicide.
The trial for Erin Smith's wrongful death lawsuit against David Walls-Kaufman started nearly six months after President Donald Trump torpedoed the largest investigation in FBI history. Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.
But his sweeping act of clemency didn't erase Smith's lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman, a 69-year-old chiropractor who pleaded guilty to Capitol riot-related misdemeanor in January 2023. A federal jury in Washington, D.C., began hearing testimony Monday for a civil trial expected to last roughly one week.
Erin Smith, the trial's first witness, recalled packing a lunch for her husband and kissing him as he headed off to work on Jan. 15, 2021, for the first time after the riot.
'I told him I loved him, said I would see him when he got home,' she testified.
Within hours, police officers knocked on her door and informed her that her husband was dead. She was stunned to learn that he shot himself with his service revolver in his own car.
'It was the most traumatic words I've ever heard,' she recalled. 'You just don't know what to do.'
Smith's lawsuit claims Walls-Kaufman scuffled with her 35-year-old husband and struck him with his own police baton inside the Capitol, causing psychological and physical trauma that led to his suicide. Smith had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot, but his mood and behavior changed after suffering a concussion, according to his wife and parents.
Walls-Kaufman, who lived near the Capitol, denies assaulting Smith. He says any injuries that the officer suffered on Jan. 6 occurred later in the day, when another rioter threw a pole that struck Smith around his head.
Walls-Kaufman's attorney, Hughie Hunt, urged jurors to 'separate emotion' and concentrate on the facts of the case.
'This is tragic, but that doesn't place anything at the foot of my client,' Hunt said during the trial's opening statements.
Smith's body camera captured video of his scuffle. Richard Link, one of his wife's lawyers, said a frame-by-frame review of the video will show a baton strike move Smith's helmeted head back and forth from the blow.
Link said Erin Smith is seeking 'some modicum of justice' for herself and her husband. 'Time stood still' for her after his death, Link added.
'My client is still living with the events of that,' he told jurors.
The police department medically evaluated Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. Hunt said there is no evidence that his client intentionally struck Smith.
'The claim rests entirely on ambiguous video footage subject to interpretation and lacks corroborating eyewitness testimony,' Hunt wrote.
Erin Smith's attorneys argue that Walls-Kaufman's pardon doesn't nullify the admissions that he made in pleading guilty to a criminal charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Two years ago, a judge sentenced Walls-Kaufman to 60 days behind bars. The outcome of his criminal case upset Smith's relatives, who questioned why the Justice Department didn't bring felony assault charges against Walls-Kaufman.
In 2022, The District of Columbia Police and Firefighters' Retirement and Relief Board determined that Smith was injured during the line-of-duty injury was the 'sole and direct cause of his death,' according to the lawsuit.
Erin Smith testified that he was still in pain and was nervous about returning to work on the day that he killed himself.
'He was fearful that something else was going to happen in the city, especially with the inauguration (of President Joe Biden ) coming up,' she said. 'As his wife, I just tried to be as supportive as I could.'
On the witness stand, Smith wore the same shoes that she had on at their wedding in 2019.
'To remember the happy times,' she said through tears. 'And to have a piece of him here with me.'
Erin Smith also sued another former Jan. 6 defendant, Taylor Taranto, whose Capitol riot charges were dismissed after Trump's Jan. 20 proclamation. She claims Taranto helped Kaufman escape from police.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes temporarily suspended Smith's claims against Taranto, who was jailed for nearly two years before he was convicted of gun and hoax bomb threat charges in May. The presidential pardon didn't cover those charges.
More than 100 law-enforcement officers were injured during the riot. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died a day after after engaging with the rioters. A medical examiner later determined he suffered a stroke and died of natural causes. Howard Liebengood, a Capitol police officer who responded to the riot, also died by suicide after the attack.
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