Police Officer Killed in US Capitol Siege Was Air National Guard Veteran, Deployed to Iraq

The U.S. Capitol Police officer who sustained injuries during the pro-Trump siege at the Capitol on Wednesday and later died was a member of the Air National Guard.

Brian D. Sicknick enlisted in the New Jersey Air National Guard in 1997 and served for six years, spokeswoman Lt. Col. Barbara Brown confirmed to Military.com on Friday.

Sicknick's duties included serving as a fire team member and leader with the 108th Security Force Squadron at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Brown said. He deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1999 as part of Operation Southern Watch and to Kyrgyzstan in 2003 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He was honorably discharged in 2003 as a staff sergeant, she said.

The Daily Beast first reported Sicknick’s Guard affiliation.

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"Staff Sgt Sicknick's commitment to serve and protect his community, state and nation will never be forgotten," Brown said in an email. "Our condolences and thoughts are with his family, friends and those who worked with him during his law enforcement career."

The Capitol Police said Thursday that Sicknick, 42, "passed away due to injuries sustained while on duty," but did not offer details on his cause of death.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday ordered Capitol flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of Sicknick. His death is under investigation, the Capitol Police said.

He was the fifth person to die after a mob descended on the Capitol, scaling walls or forcing past federal law enforcement personnel to enter the building. Lawmakers, including Vice President Mike Pence, were inside voting to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

A former Air Force Security Forces airman died after she was shot allegedly trying to climb through a broken window of the Speaker's Lobby inside the building. The service identified her as Ashli Babbitt, 35, who served under the name Ashli Elizabeth McEntee.

Babbitt posted on social media that she was an avid Trump supporter and believed the Nov. 3 election was stolen from the president.

She enlisted in 2004 and deployed overseas four times: Afghanistan in 2005, Iraq in 2006, and the United Arab Emirates in 2012 and 2014, the service said, as reported by Air Force Times.

While on active duty, she achieved the rank of senior airman. Her last active-duty post was at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, before she transitioned into the Reserve and then to the Air National Guard. She separated in July 2016, Air Force Times said.

The Associated Press reported that Babbitt had previously been charged with reckless endangerment for allegedly hitting a woman's car in Calvert County, Maryland, and pursuing her in a road rage incident in August 2016. She was acquitted of those charges, the AP said.

In addition to Sicknick and Babbitt, three people died of medical emergencies outside the Capitol.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

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