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

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Ryan J. Reilly
@ryanjreilly
·
Aug 23, 2021
“When I saw him grinning with the Trump cutout, that’s when I figured we probably had a good lead.”

Here’s how #SeditionHunters identified the county GOP webmaster who stormed the Capitol with a weaponized cane and sparred with officers inside. #AstroNOT https://huffpost.com/entry/sedition-hunters-capitol-attack-jeff-smith-trump-riot_n_6117e45fe4b01da700f646dd…
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Ryan J. Reilly
@ryanjreilly
“I’m only sharing this so someone will report me to the feds and we can get this party rolling!”

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.
huffpost.com
1:11 PM · Aug 23, 2021

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sedition-hunters-capitol-attack-jeff-smith-trump-riot_n_6117e45fe4b01da700f646dd

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.

David Weber, a former federal law enforcement official and government whistleblower who is representing Smith and her husband’s estate, reached out to this reporter after reading a HuffPost story on how motivated online investigators are keeping the FBI on their toes as they work a probe with an unprecedented scope. Weber, now a forensics professor at Salisbury University, was sick of getting stonewalled by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department as he fought for recognition. Erin Smith “could have been my wife or sister,” said Weber, who was formerly the chief investigator at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

*snip*

[ffr]

1. American Taliban

Terrorist!

Hope he goes down!

[bottomofthehill]

2. Charge him, give him a fair trial, convict him

Lock him up, throw away the key and see how he does in prison.

Fuck him

[Leghorn21]

3. Hang tough, Erin Smith

RIP, Officer Jeffrey Smith

THANK YOU, Citizen Sedition Sleuths

See you in hell, Taylor Taranto