Widow of D.C. officer who died by suicide says Jan. 6 "changed him"
The widow of an officer who died by suicide after responding to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is pressing Congress to pass legislation recognizing the trauma suffered by law enforcement officers who take their own lives, which she told CBS News would be a fitting legacy for her husband.
Four officers who responded on Jan. 6 died by suicide within seven months of the attack.
Earlier this month, Erin Smith received an email from Washington, D.C., with the result she had spent more than a year fighting for. The city had ruled that her husband's suicide — nine days after Jan. 6, 2021 — was caused by injuries sustained in battling the rioters, and as such, his death was found to have occurred in the line of duty.
"Honestly, I couldn't believe it," Smith told CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane in an exclusive interview.
She believes that the District was initially reluctant to grant the line-of-duty designation, because "with a suicide comes a stigma and something that the police department doesn't want to face or recognize."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/january-6-dc-police-jeffrey-smith-riots-suicide/
= new reply since forum marked as read
speaking as a nurse with some experience in the area, is that he had a concussion, and that several of the others suffered traumatic brain injuries worse than that---the one who was beaten with a fire extinguisher, for instance. But even the "police medical clinic" should know you don't send someone straight back to work who has the slightest symptoms of a concussion. 
