The widow of a DC police officer who committed suicide nine days after responding to the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 is suing his alleged attacker, the Washington Post reports.
DC Police Officer Jeffrey Smith’s widow, Erin Smith, alleges that the injuries he suffered while defending the Capitol led him to commit suicide.
Smith’s lawyer was able to identify his attacker by contacting ‘Deep State Dog,’ a group of private citizens working to identify insurrectionists on January 6, after reading a HuffPost article about ‘Sedition Hunters.’
The group was able to use facial recognition software to identify Smith’s attacker as David Walls–Kaufman as he engaged with officers on January 6.
According to the lawsuit, an unidentified co-defendant ( identified in an amended suit on Saturday as Taylor F. Taranto) handed Kaufman a metal rod that looked like “a cane or a crowbar” which he used to hit Smith in face/head when his visor was up, giving him a concussion and neck injuries.
Erin said her husband slipped into a deep depression after the attack. He killed himself with his service weapon on January 15 on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, one day after he was ordered to return to work.
According to the lawsuit, his cause of death was severe depression and brain injury.
“The effects of postconcussive syndrome, in turn, includes health maladies such as severe depression and suicide,” the lawsuit said. “In other words, but for the concussion of Officer Smith at the hands of the defendants, Officer Smith would be alive today. He was killed in the line of duty by these defendants.”
Smith’s estate is suing Kaufman and Taranto for assault and battery and wrongful death and is suing Taranto for aiding and abetting. The estate is seeking a $2 million judgment and punitive damages totaling $5 million, according to the lawsuit.
Four officers who responded to the riot at the Capitol have died by suicide in the weeks and months after the attack.
