Thursday, March 28, 2024

NYT Updates Capitol Police Officer Death Story After National Pulse Report

The New York Times updated a story about the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick to reflect reporting on the cause of death done by The National Pulse. 

The article, “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage,” was first published on January 8th but later updated on February 12th with the following text:

UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.
The initial draft of the article contends that Sicknick passed away as a result of being “struck with a fire extinguisher”:

The circumstances surrounding Mr. Sicknick’s death were not immediately clear, and the Capitol Police said only that he had “passed away due to injuries sustained while on duty.” At some point in the chaos — with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress while lawmakers were forced to hide under their desks — he was struck with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials.

Now, however, the fourth paragraph of the article noted that “medical experts have said he did not die of blunt force trauma”:

The circumstances surrounding Mr. Sicknick’s death were not immediately clear, and the Capitol Police said only that he had “passed away due to injuries sustained while on duty.” Law enforcement officials initially said Mr. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher, but weeks later, police sources and investigators were at odds over whether he was hit. medical experts have said he did not die of blunt force trauma, according to one law enforcement official.

The changes come less than a week after National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam published a story, “CNN Repeatedly Claimed Capitol Officer Sicknick Died Due To A Fire Extinguisher Hit… Now They’ve Quietly Admitted That May Not Be True,” revealing that “despite the multitude of claims since January 6th, Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was not killed by a blunt force trauma.”

After chronicling all the CNN personalities who shared the false information relating to Sicknick’s death, Kassam notes “none of these shows, their staffs, nor their anchors have issued apologies nor corrections for their incorrect assertions, which are especially galling given Officer Sicknick’s family outwardly called for his death to not be politicized.”

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