Widow of D.C. officer who died by suicide after Jan. 6 says $500,000 verdict was
Washington — Jeffrey Smith, one of many D.C. law enforcement officials crushed and injured in the course of the Capitol revolt on Jan. 6, 2021, was left traumatized and adjusted by the occasions of that day, his widow, Erin Smith, says.
“The person that left on January 6 was not the person that got here house within the early hours of January 7,” Smith instructed CBS Information this week. “He was a special individual. His character modified. His demeanor modified. He was there, however the man that I knew was not in the identical physique.”
The 35-year-old Smith died by suicide on Jan. 15, 2021, as he was driving to work for the primary time for the reason that Capitol riot.
In 2022, Erin Smith filed a wrongful demise lawsuit for assault and battery towards 69-year-old chiropractor David Partitions-Kaufman, alleging that he had assaulted her husband in the course of the Capitol riot.
In January 2023, Partitions-Kaufman pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor federal rely of “parading, demonstrating and picketing in a Capitol constructing” in reference to the revolt. On the time, he acknowledged that he had “scuffled” with legislation enforcement, however didn’t face any federal assault expenses within the case.
He served 60 days in jail on that misdemeanor cost. He was one in all tons of of Capitol insurrectionists pardoned by President Trump in January.
Regardless of the pardon, Smith’s lawsuit went to trial in June. After a prolonged civil trial and simply two hours of deliberations, a jury final week ordered Partitions-Kaufman to pay her and her late husband’s property $500,000, discovering that Partitions-Kaufman had assaulted Jeffrey Smith on Jan. 6.
In an announcement to CBS Information, Partitions-Kaufman denied hanging Smith and known as the lawsuit and the decision “sadistic.”
“It felt like a aid, a aid that each one the preventing was value it, every part that I had completed was value it, and it proves that he was injured,” Smith stated of the jury’s determination.
Following her husband’s demise, Smith grew to become a reluctant however impactful advocate. She efficiently lobbied Congress to move a bipartisan legislation in 2022 to permit some police deaths by suicide to be designated as “official line of obligation” deaths.
In March of that yr, Washington’s Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Aid Board formally dominated that Smith’s demise was within the line of obligation. Physique digital camera footage obtained by CBS Information appeared to point out that Jeffrey Smith was the goal of a number of assaults on Jan. 6. These photos helped Erin Smith have her husband’s designation modified.
Now, Smith is urgent the Nationwide Regulation Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington so as to add her late husband’s title to its wall and embrace him in an honorary ceremony subsequent Could.
She can also be calling for the memorial to open eligibility for others for whom it has been formally decided to have died by suicide due to accidents on the job.
“Getting his title on there isn’t just for me,” Smith stated. “It is also for his household, his associates, his associate, the folks on the Metropolitan Police Division, his colleagues. And it is also for different officers who’ve died by suicide because of accidents that additionally they acquired at work.”
In the event you or somebody you understand is in emotional misery or a suicidal disaster, you possibly can attain the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can even chat with the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline right here.
For extra details about psychological well being care sources and assist, The Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness (NAMI) HelpLine will be reached Monday by way of Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or electronic mail data@nami.org.
