Online Sleuths Identify Second Jan. 6 Rioter Seen Battling DC Cop Who Died By Suicide

The online "Sedition Hunters" helped an officer’s widow untangle a web of evidence that tells the story of what happened to her husband that day.

The meeting, like many in the coronavirus era, took place over Zoom. In one panel: the widow of a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who died by suicide just nine days after he was attacked by rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, in hopes of overturning the 2020 election and keeping Donald Trump in office. In another panel: one of the online investigators trying to bring her late husband’s assailants to justice. It had been a whirlwind 48 hours when they joined the video chat last Sunday morning. Erin Smith, the wife of the late Officer Jeffrey Smith, had been fighting for months to have her husband’s death classified as a line-of-duty death. That designation would allow her to keep her survivor benefits like insurance, which she learned she’d lost while standing at a pharmacy counter months after Jeffrey’s death. It would also give her and her husband the dignity afforded to the family of a police officer who died protecting the public, and in this case, defending American democracy. Hours before the call, Smith’s attorney filed an amended lawsuit against two Capitol rioters who were identified by the online sleuths who call themselves #SeditionHunters. In videos from that day, both men appear to tangle with Smith inside the Capitol. Since Jan. 6, Sedition Hunters volunteers have painstakingly compiled terabytes of data from the Capitol attack. They have helped identify and compile evidence against dozens of Capitol rioters arrested by the FBI. There are still hundreds of Jan. 6 arrests to be made, and the #SeditionHunters community will very likely play a role in many of them.