As a crowd of people attacked the U.S. Capitol last January, a metal pole thrown by rioters fell on MPD officer Jeffrey Smith while he tried to fend them off. Less than a month later, he took his own life.
This week, the D.C. Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined Smith’s death should be classified as a line of duty death, according to a statement by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represented Smith.
He said the board concluded that “a personal injury on January 6, 2021, while performing his duties and that his injury was the sole and direct cause of his death.”
“Officer Jeffrey Smith would still be alive today if he hadn’t risked his life to defend all of us at the U.S. Capitol and our democracy itself,” said Beyer. “His heroism led to his death, which absolutely occurred in the line of duty.”
According to The Washington Post, Smith, 35, texted his wife from the scene of the insurrection around 2:30 p.m. and he was still there around 5:30 p.m., when rioters threw a metal pole that struck his helmet and face shield. He kept working into the night but eventually visited the police medical clinic and was placed on sick leave.
His wife, Erin Smith, said he was sent home with pain medication.
Over the following days, her husband seemed to be in constant pain and could not turn his head. He wouldn’t leave the house, talk or watch television and often had trouble sleeping.
“He wasn’t the same Jeff that left on the 6th…I just tried to comfort him and let him know that I loved him,” Erin Smith said.
Her husband went back to the clinic Jan. 14 and was ordered back to work. He shot himself in the head the following day after setting off to his shift. Police found Smith in his Ford Mustang, which had rolled over and down an embankment along the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
“Policymakers including Congress must update laws to remove stigma wrongly attached to suicide,” said Beyer. “Too many have died following severe trauma, we must right this wrong and fight for more empathetic responses to their struggles and sacrifices as we fight the scourge of suicide itself.”
Beyer said that Erin Smith worked for over a year to make sure the D.C. Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board would recognize her husband’s passing as a line of duty death.
With the decision, Erin Smith will receive an annuity equal to 100 percent of her husband's salary, said WUSA.
Smith is one of four police officers who died by suicide after the attack, according to the outlet. Officer Kyle DeFreytag, Officer Howard “Howie” Liebengood and Officer Gunther Hashida also took their lives after the riots. Officer Brian Sicknick died at the scene.
As of the one-year anniversary of the attack, more than 725 people had been arrested for participating in the riots – including supporters of former President Donald Trump who sought to prevent the 2020 presidential election results from being certified. During the insurrection, participants caused an estimated $1.5 million in damage, said the U.S. Department of Justice.
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