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Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Third police officer at Capitol riot dies by suicide

Gunther Hashida, a Metropolitan Police Department officer, took his own life last week. He was 43 years old.

WASHINGTON (CN) — An officer with Washington, D.C.'s metro police force who responded to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has died by suicide, becoming the third officer at the Capitol that day to take their own life in the months since the attack.

A fundraiser posted online Sunday in support of Gunther Hashida’s family – he leaves behind a wife, three children and a sister – says the Metropolitan Police Department officer passed away Thursday. MPD officer Jeffrey Smith and U.S. Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood also died by suicide shortly after the attack.

“He was a devoted and loving husband and father,” the Hashida family fundraiser page states. “This fund will help support his memorial service and his family in the loss of his love and guidance.”

Hashida, 43, joined the force in 2003 and was assigned to the emergency response team within the special operations division. A memorial service will be held at Mountcastle Turch Funeral Home in Dale City, Virginia, on Friday.

Congresswoman Elaine Luria, a member of the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, expressed her sympathy for Hashida’s family in a statement on Twitter Monday.

“We know the pain of January 6 is still real for so many officers,” the Virginia Democrat said. “We can’t look away from what happened that day and we must continue to seek the truth about what happened that day.”

Hashida’s death came just two days after Capitol Police and MPD officers testified in Congress about the horrors they experienced defending the building, lawmakers and their staff from insurrectionists loyal to then-President Donald Trump, who were trying to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in last year's presidential election.

Republicans have decried the committee as a partisan exercise after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rejected the appointment of some GOP members.  

MPD spokeswoman Kristen Metzger told CNN, which first reported Hashida’s death Monday, that the officer was found dead in his residence, but did not elaborate on any other circumstances surrounding the suicide.

“We are grieving as a department and our thoughts and prayers are with Officer Hashida’s family and friends,” Metzger said in a statement.

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Categories / Government, National, Politics

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