Two Capitol Police officers filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby filed the suit on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, nearly three months after the deadly assault. Both of the officers, who have been on the force 17 and 11 years, respectively, are seeking unspecified compensation and damages greater than $75,000 apiece.
The lawsuit alleges Trump was responsible for inciting the crowd of supporters who turned violent. That day, the then-president spoke at a rally outside the White House, which he urged his supporters to attend. During the event, he directed his supporters to march to the Capitol to voice their frustration with Congress, which was certifying the election results for Joe Biden at the time.
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Trump “inflamed, encouraged, incited, directed, and aided and abetted” the insurrectionists who were “spurred on by Trump’s conduct over many months in getting his followers to believe his false allegation that he was about to be forced out of the White House because of massive election fraud by his presidential adversary Joe Biden,” according to the 40-page suit.
The suit alleges the former president is guilty of directing assault and battery, aiding and abetting assault and battery, directing intentional infliction of emotional distress, incitement to riot, and disorderly conduct. It goes on to detail the president’s repeated falsehoods about election integrity following the election but leading up to the Capitol riot.
In the lawsuit, both officers laid out their experiences of the Capitol riot that left four civilians dead and three law enforcement officers dead, two of whom committed suicide days after.
Hemby, who was assigned to the Civil Disturbance Unit on the day of the riot, said the protesters’ “number and aggressiveness” were “unprecedented in his experience.” During the chaos, Blassingame saw four of his colleagues “pinned to the doors by a large and surging crowd of aggressive people dressed in Trump and MAGA gear and hats.”
Hembry tried to stop the crowd from entering the East Front stairs of the Capitol, but “it was too late, and the crowd was too large and aggressive.” The crowd chased him and his fellow officers to the top of the stairs and forced them against the doors.
Hemby “was attacked relentlessly,” suffered “a cut located less than an inch from his eye,” and had “cuts and abrasions on his face and hands,” while Blassingame was slammed against a column in the hallway leading to the crypt, which left him “unable to move” after “he struck his spine and the back of his head.”
The suit also notes that the rioters called Blassingame the “n-word” so many times “he lost count.”
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Earlier this month, the FBI said that it apprehended more than 300 people in connection to the violence, 65 of which were charged for assaulting officers.
The Capitol riot led to the second impeachment of Trump. He was acquitted in the Senate, though seven Republicans voted to remove him from office. He is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached by the House twice.
