2 charged in assault of Capitol officer
Officials: Chemical sprayed on cop who died after riot
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have arrested and charged two men with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick with bear spray during the Jan. 6 riot, but they do not know yet whether it caused the officer’s death.
George Tanios, 39, of Morgantown, West Virginia, and Julian Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, were arrested Sunday on an array of charges, including assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy and other offenses. The idea that Sicknick died after being sprayed by a chemical irritant has emerged in recent weeks as a new
theory in the case.
The arrests are the closest federal prosecutors have come to identifying and charging anyone associated with the deaths that happened during and after the riot. Five people died, including a woman who was shot by a police officer inside the Capitol. But many rioters are facing charges of injuring police officers, who were attacked with bats, sprayed with irritants, punched and kicked, and rammed with metal gates meant
to keep the insurrectionists from the Capitol.
Investigators initially believed that Sicknick was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, based on statements collected early in the investigation, according to two people familiar with the case. But as they’ve collected more evidence, the theory of the case has evolved and investi
gators now believe Sicknick may have ingested a chemical substance — possibly bear spray — that may have contributed to his death, officials have said.
Sicknick and other officers were standing guard behind metal bicycle racks as the mob descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Give me that bear (spray),” Khater said before he reached into Tanios’ backpack, according to court papers. Tanios told Khater “not yet” because it was “still early,” but Tanios responded that “they just ... sprayed me.” Khater was then seen holding a can of chemical spray, prosecutors say.
Khater walked through the crowd toward the bike rack barrier. Rioters began pulling on one of the racks, and Khater was seen with his arm in the air and the canister in his hand while standing 5 to 8 feet from the officers, authorities said.
Video footage shows the officers reacting one by one — bringing their hands to their face and rushing to find water to flush out their eyes — after they were hit with the spray, according to court papers.
Another officer eventually spotted Khater deploying the substance and sprayed Khater himself, authorities said.
The men each made brief court appearances from jail via videoconference Monday and will remain locked up pending future hearings. A detention hearing was scheduled for Thursday for Tanios.
An email seeking comment was sent to Tanios’
lawyer. A person who answered the phone at the office of Khater’s lawyer said they had no comment.
In a statement Monday, Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman called the attack on the Capitol and its officers “an attack on our democracy.”
“Those who perpetrated these heinous crimes must be held accountable, and — let me be clear — these unlawful actions are not and
will not be tolerated by this Department,” Pittman said.
The FBI had obtained video of the incident and released photos of both of the men, but did not indicate in wanted posters that they were being sought in connection with Sicknick’s death. A former colleague identified Khater and the FBI received a tip from Tanios’ former business partner, who also alleged he embezzled hundreds of
thousands of dollars from their business, court papers said.
Tanios operates a diner called Sandwich U in Morgantown, home of West Virginia University.
On social media, he has referred to himself as the “Sandwich Nazi” and has tangled with customers and former employees in online comments. In 2019 on Instagram, he gleefully promoted a one-star Google review that said, “If donald trump was a restaurant manager, this is who he would be.”
A photo at the Capitol cited in his charging document shows him wearing a sweatshirt with the logo of his restaurant.
Sicknick died after defending the Capitol against the mob that stormed the building as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s electoral win over former President Donald Trump. It came after Trump urged supporters on the National Mall to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.
The circumstances surrounding Sicknick’s death remain unclear, and a final cause of death has not been determined. Capitol Police have said he died after he was injured “while physically engaging with protesters,” and the agency’s acting chief said officials consider it a line-of-duty death.
Sicknick collapsed later and died at a hospital Jan. 7.
The medical examiner’s report on Sicknick’s death is incomplete; Capitol Police say they are awaiting toxicology results.
The FBI has already released about 250 photos of people being sought for assaulting federal law enforcement officers during the riot.
Over the weekend, Gov. Larry Hogan was asked on CNN about attacks on Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his response was direct and forceful calling them “outrageous” and “unacceptable.” The governor has some direct knowledge of this. His wife, Yumi Hogan, is Korean American, and he told host Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that she, their three daughters and their grandchildren have suffered its effects.
“We feel it personally with my daughter, who sort of is sometimes afraid to come visit us, with people who had best friends that were being harassed at the grocery store, or being called names, and people yelling about the China virus, even though they’re from Korea and born in America,” Governor Hogan said.
Such behavior is unconscionable, and we commend Governor Hogan for his frank talk. It’s a point the Republican governor made several days earlier, too, posting on social media a 2018 photograph of his family with a shoutout to President
Joe Biden, a Democrat, for condemning hate-crime attacks on Asian Americans in a national address from the White House last Thursday. In that speech, President Biden called such incidents “vicious” and “un-American.” The president observed how Asian Americans, some of them front line workers in the pandemic, were being “attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated.” And he was correct: It is happening with shameful frequency.
A new study from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism found anti-Asian hate crimes in the nation’s largest cities is up 149% in 2020 compared to an overall drop in hate crimes of 7% during the same period. In New York City, for example, the number of anti-Asian hate crimes rose by nearly tenfold between 2019 and 2020. The study’s authors speculate that such incidents are greatly under-reported as these are only cases which result in a police report. Victims of hate crimes are frequently fearful of reprisal and reluctant to contact authorities.
It’s not difficult to see what’s going on here. Then-President Donald Trump took particular glee in referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus” or “Kung Flu,” and he did so again and again at rallies to the point where anything China or Chinese would draw a chorus of angry boos and catcalls from his supporters. It was exactly the kind of frenzy that he conjured four years earlier when speaking out against Mexican and Central American immigrants. There was no subtlety here, no policy point, it was all about anger and hatred and an America First vision that judges nonwhites as the enemy. Nor did it help that China became the favored boogie man of the Republican right-wing raising furor to a level reminiscent of the Red Scare when hate-mongers in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s were convinced that the People’s Republic of China was bent on invasion by first infiltrating the highest levels of government.
That’s not to suggest the U.S. doesn’t have legitimate policy
disputes with China. Of course, we do. China represents a national security threat as do Russia, North Korea and Iran, to name some others. But our dispute is on policy, not people. And unsupported claims that China deliberately unleashed the coronavirus or that it was even bioengineered in a government lab have been mindlessly repeated again and again to anger Americans. Even now, despite Mr. Trump’s departure from the White House, others have picked up the bile-spewing xenophobia: Last fall, no fewer than 164 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted against legislation condemning racist attacks on Asian Americans related to COVID. It was dismissed by some as too “woke.”
That’s right, apparently it’s just too politically correct to be against the 2,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate, including assaults, that took place between March 19 and Dec. 31, 2020, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate. Those attacks have included the stabbing of three members of an Asian-American family outside a Midland, Texas Sam’s Club (including a 2-year-old and 6-year-old) almost exactly one year ago by an attacker who thought they were Chinese and attempting to knowingly infect people with the virus.
Enough is enough. It’s never been acceptable to senselessly attack people on the basis of race or nationality, gender or creed, religion, sexual orientation or anything else whether there’s a virus or whatever the layers of ignorance involved. On this matter, America’s leaders ought to speak with one voice so that there’s no mistaking the truth: Stop the bullying, harassment and hate. Not in the times of COVID-19, not before and not after.