Busts in cop's Capitol assault
Ex-Jersey boys ‘sprayed Sicknick’
Two former New Jersey men have been arrested for assaulting US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the January attack on Congress, authorities said Monday.
Julian Elie Khater, 32, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, are accused of discharging bear spray into the faces of three officers: Sicknick, another Capitol Police officer and a DC cop.
“Give me that bear s--t,” Khater allegedly told Tanios as the pair stood near some metal bike racks, where Sicknick and other cops were standing guard, on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol around 2:14 p.m. Jan. 6, the day of the deadly riots.
The comment was caught on videotape, the feds said.
Khater was apparently hit by a substance, saying, “They just [expletive] sprayed me” — before he was seen in the footage minutes later discharging a can of what appeared to be bear spray into the cops’ faces, authorities said.
The three injured officers were temporarily blinded and left incapacitated for more than 20 minutes — while one of them, a female cop, suffered scarring under her eyes for weeks, the Washington Post reported, citing court papers.
Authorities have not charged anyone in connection with Sicknick’s death, since officials have not determined the exact cause.
They at first believed he was hit with a fire extinguisher, but have since begun to suspect a chemical substance led him to collapse shortly after his encounter with the mob. He died in a hospital the evening after the riots.
The two assault suspects were nailed by tipsters who recognized their mugs from surveillance video and cop bodycam footage that the FBI had put out in the days after the violence.
Khater currently lives in Pennsylvania and worked in State College, while Tanios is a businessman from Morgantown, W.Va., although they grew up together in Jersey, the Post said.
Sicknick, a 42-year-old military vet and President Donald Trump supporter, also was originally from East Brunswick, NJ.