Background: Rioters supporting President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021 (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File). Inset: Alan "AJ" Fischer (FBI).
A group of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection is suing the U.S. government for what they allege is "excessive force" used by police against a "peaceful crowd."
The 15-page class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Middle District of Florida, where plaintiffs Patrick Sullivan and Marie Sullivan live and where plaintiff Alan E. Fischer III resides. They are invoking the U.S. Federal Tort Claims Act in pursuit of damages "for injuries caused when the police indiscriminately launched explosive munitions, chemical agents, and impact projectiles into a peaceful crowd and physically assaulted members of the crowd."
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron, a Barack Obama appointee.
The demonstrators, 46 of whom added their names to the lawsuit, contend that they "gathered on the west side of the U.S. Capitol building" on Jan. 6, 2021, "to exercise their First Amendment Rights to protest the opening, reading and counting of the Electoral College votes for the 2020 presidential election" when "police started to indiscriminately launch explosive munitions into the crowd."
The law enforcement agencies named include the U.S. Capitol Police — under the authority of the federal government — and the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia, which was "under the direction and control of the Capitol Police," per the lawsuit.
The complaint says that there was no need for officers to act in the way that they did.
"The crowd was composed of protesters who were overwhelmingly peaceful before the shooting by police started. They were assembled on the grounds not engaging in violence," the complaint states. While the plaintiffs concede that a "small group of protesters were up along a temporary bike fence line and pushing" police, "[n]o one intentionally harmed any officers."
"The munitions launched into the crowd were not directed at any of the people who were pushing on the fence line," the lawsuit goes on, alleging that officers gave no warning before shooting. "Instead, the police were shooting indiscriminately into the crowd further back in an area with peaceful protesters."
Fischer — one of the plaintiffs — was associated with the Proud Boys and accused of hurling a traffic cone and chairs at police outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, as Law&Crime previously reported. According to investigators he wasn't just a participant in the insurrection but an instigator among the mob of Donald Trump supporters seeking to breach the building and stop Congress from certifying the results of Joe Biden's 2020 election win.
However, like some 1,500 other Jan. 6 defendants, Fischer was pardoned by Trump on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of the president's second term.
The Sullivans did not face criminal charges for their conduct on Jan. 6, as Politico notes.
The lawsuit breaks its class members into three groups: those who filed a Federal Tort Claims Act claim more than six months ago and still have not seen an outcome, those who have filed the claim within the past six months, and "many others who meet the proposed class membership definition but have not submitted" forms. The plaintiffs maintain that there are "hundreds or potentially thousands of individuals" among them.
The Jan. 6 demonstrators say they have suffered "bodily injury … [and/or] severe emotional distress and psychological trauma, mental anguish, inconvenience, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, expense of hospitalization, medical and nursing care and treatment, loss of earnings, loss of ability to earn money, and aggravation of a previously existing condition." Though the insurrection was more than five years ago, they claim that the "losses are either permanent or continuing and class members will suffer losses into the future."
The plaintiffs seek, among other things, "a judgment declaring that the United States Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia assaulted and battered protesters" as well as "acted negligently." They want a trial by jury and monetary damages.
Byron — the federal judge — has instructed the U.S. government to respond to the complaint within 60 days.
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