Following a long battle, the widow of a Washington, D.C., police officer who died via suicide after being assaulted all over the 2021 Capitol rise up has been discovered eligible to obtain federal advantages after his dying used to be dominated a line-of-duty dying.
Erin Smith, whose husband Jeffrey Smith died days after struggling a concussion and tense mind damage within the assault, used to be knowledgeable Thursday of the long-awaited resolution via the Division of Justice’s Public Protection Officials’ Get advantages Place of job, her legal professional mentioned Friday.
The verdict got here precisely a yr after President Joe Biden signed the Public Protection Officer Improve Act, which extends line-of-duty advantages to officials who’re believed to have contributed to or brought about their very own damage or suicide after experiencing a tense match. Smith carried out for the advantages program in a while after the brand new regulation went into impact.
Smith had petitioned for increasing the advantages and effectively satisfied the D.C. Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Reduction Board early closing yr that her husband’s dying used to be in truth a line-of-duty dying.
Jeffrey Smith used to be struck more than one instances with a police baton and a steel pole via rioters whilst clearing a barricaded house within the U.S. Capitol. The Metropolitan Police Division officer used to be ordered again to paintings 9 days later and fatally shot himself whilst riding to paintings, the circle of relatives’s legal professional mentioned.
“I will have given up. However I didn’t need any long run widow, or widower, to ever undergo what I went thru within the aftermath of Jeffrey’s dying,” Erin Smith mentioned in a observation launched via her legal professional. “I’m happy that at the one-year anniversary of the regulation’s passage, Jeffrey’s dying has in any case been dominated to be line of obligation below federal regulation.”
Her legal professional, David Weber, mentioned the closing step sought is for Smith to be buried at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery with the reputable honor guard that he merits.
“Nowadays, we all know he died a hero, within the line of obligation. However on the time, Mrs. Smith watched as different officials lay in state, whilst she mourned very a lot by myself, and not using a improve or acknowledgment from the country or town,” mentioned Weber, who demanded that Smith’s identify be additionally added to the Nationwide Legislation Enforcement Officials Memorial in Washington.
“It’s time to take away the stigma suffered via Mrs. Smith and all of the long run widows and widowers who’ve misplaced their family members to their regulation enforcement tasks. There can now not be any critical debate that Police Officer Jeffrey Smith died within the line of obligation,” he mentioned.