WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith shot and killed himself while driving to work. Over four years later, Smith's widow is trying to prove to a jury that one of the thousands of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is responsible for her husband's suicide.
The trial for Erin Smith's wrongful death lawsuit against David Walls-Kaufman started nearly six months after President Donald Trump torpedoed the largest investigation in FBI history. Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.
But his sweeping act of clemency didn't erase Smith's lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman, a 69-year-old chiropractor who pleaded guilty to Capitol riot-related misdemeanor in January 2023. A federal jury in Washington, D.C., began hearing testimony Monday for a civil trial expected to last roughly one week.
Erin Smith, the trial's first witness, recalled packing a lunch for her husband and kissing him as he headed off to work on Jan. 15, 2021, for the first time after the riot.
“I told him I loved him, said I would see him when he got home,” she testified.
Within hours, police officers knocked on her door and informed her that her husband was dead. She was stunned to learn that he shot himself with his service revolver in his own car.
“It was the most traumatic words I've ever heard," she recalled. “You just don't know what to do.”
Smith's lawsuit claims Walls-Kaufman scuffled with her 35-year-old husband and struck him with his own police baton inside the Capitol, causing psychological and physical trauma that led to his suicide. Smith had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot, but his mood and behavior changed after suffering a concussion, according to his wife and parents.
Walls-Kaufman, who lived near the Capitol, denies assaulting Smith. He says any injuries that the officer suffered on Jan. 6 occurred later in the day, when another rioter threw a pole that struck Smith around his head.
Walls-Kaufman’s attorney, Hughie Hunt, urged jurors to “separate emotion” and concentrate on the facts of the case.
“This is tragic, but that doesn't place anything at the foot of my client,” Hunt said during the trial's opening statements.
Smith’s body camera captured video of his scuffle. Richard Link, one of his wife’s lawyers, said a frame-by-frame review of the video will show a baton strike move Smith's helmeted head back and forth from the blow.
Link said Erin Smith is seeking “some modicum of justice” for herself and her husband. “Time stood still” for her after his death, Link added.
“My client is still living with the events of that," he told jurors.
The police department medically evaluated Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. Hunt said there is no evidence that his client intentionally struck Smith.
“The claim rests entirely on ambiguous video footage subject to interpretation and lacks corroborating eyewitness testimony,” Hunt wrote.
Erin Smith’s attorneys argue that Walls-Kaufman’s pardon doesn’t nullify the admissions that he made in pleading guilty to a criminal charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Two years ago, a judge sentenced Walls-Kaufman to 60 days behind bars. The outcome of his criminal case upset Smith's relatives, who questioned why the Justice Department didn't bring felony assault charges against Walls-Kaufman.
In 2022, The District of Columbia Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined that Smith was injured during the line-of-duty injury was the “sole and direct cause of his death,” according to the lawsuit.
Erin Smith testified that he was still in pain and was nervous about returning to work on the day that he killed himself.
“He was fearful that something else was going to happen in the city, especially with the inauguration (of President Joe Biden ) coming up,” she said. “As his wife, I just tried to be as supportive as I could.”
On the witness stand, Smith wore the same shoes that she had on at their wedding in 2019.
“To remember the happy times,” she said through tears. “And to have a piece of him here with me.”
Erin Smith also sued another former Jan. 6 defendant, Taylor Taranto, whose Capitol riot charges were dismissed after Trump's Jan. 20 proclamation. She claims Taranto helped Kaufman escape from police.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes temporarily suspended Smith's claims against Taranto, who was jailed for nearly two years before he was convicted of gun and hoax bomb threat charges in May. The presidential pardon didn't cover those charges.
More than 100 law-enforcement officers were injured during the riot. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died a day after after engaging with the rioters. A medical examiner later determined he suffered a stroke and died of natural causes. Howard Liebengood, a Capitol police officer who responded to the riot, also died by suicide after the attack.
The U.S Capitol is seen on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
This image from the Department of Justice statement of facts to support an arrest warrant for David Walls-Kaufman, shows an image from police body-worn video, contained and annotated by the source, of David Walls-Kaufman in the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (Department of Justice via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
