Several participants of the rioting at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government, seeking damages caused by the “indiscriminate” use of force by Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers repelling the attack, which caused them physical and emotional injuries.
On that fateful day, police officers were outnumbered as they tried to fend off the mob while members of Congress fled.
The lawsuit was filed in Florida on Friday, with three primary plaintiffs named: Alan Fischer, who was associated with the Proud boys and granted clemency by Trump, and Patrick and Marie Sullivan, two participants who were never charged.
The lawsuit has landed in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Paul Bryon, an Obama appointee in Florida.
Others who have joined the lawsuit include:
- Joseph Fisher, a Boston police K-9 officer who attacked a Capitol Police officer with a chair and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Fisher stated he was embarrassed by his actions and apologized to the officer he assaulted, the people of Washington D.C., and the country for his “egregious” behavior.
- Florida Proud Boy Christopher Worrell, who was sought on a six week manhunt and later sentenced to 10 years in prison, then released after Trump pardons. Worrell sprayed police officers with pepper spray gel and bragged on camera that he “deployed a whole can” and was “f****** handing it to them.”
- Andrew Johnson, entered the Capitol building through a broken window and engaged in “disorderly and disruptive conduct” for more than four hours, and later pardoned by Trump. In February, a jury found Johnson guilty of five charges, including molesting a child under 12 and another under 16, as well as lewd and lascivious exhibition and transmitting harmful materials by electronic device to a minor. Johnson tried to bribe the silence of one of his victims by promising a payout coming from the government. This month Johnson was sentenced to life in prison.
In all, 46 people could be part of the class action claim for more than $18.4 million, the lawsuit says, and the class could eventually consist “of hundreds or potentially thousands of individuals.”
The Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department were “indiscriminately shooting chemical munitions and pepper spray into a crowd of thousands of people,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit tries to draw a distinction between members of the mob who pushed on police officers at a bike fence line, and others who were further back among “peaceful protesters.” The lawsuit accuses police officers of launching munitions indiscriminately at the group instead of individuals pushing against police.
The lawsuit also asked the court to issue a judgment declaring that Capitol Police and the MPD “assaulted and battered protesters on the west side of the U.S. Capitol building.”