Exclusive: Tri-Cities man sued for death of Capitol officer wants $3.5M and an apology
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These Tri-Cities area men are on trial for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riots
A Franklin County WA man and two Pendleton OR brothers are awaiting trial for their involvement in the 2021 insurrection. The lastest on Taylor Taranto and the Klein brothers.
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A Tri-Cities Republican Party official is asking for millions of dollars in damages and a public apology after being sued for his alleged role in the death of a U.S. Capitol police officer.
Taylor Taranto, 35, of Pasco, commented publicly for the first time this week after being accused of joining in the Jan. 6 attack that led to the officer dying by suicide.
Lawmakers have called the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol an insurrection and attempted coup. The January 6 Commission has been tasked by Congress with investigating the attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying the 2020 election.
Taylor Taranto
Taylor Taranto was sued last year by the widow of Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith for his role in the attack. Erin Smith filed the wrongful death lawsuit against Taranto and another man.
In December, Taranto asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and award him $3.5 million, plus a public apology.
Taranto is listed as the webmaster for the Franklin County Republican Party. He told the Tri-City Herald this week that he still volunteers with the organization. He is a U.S. Navy veteran and one time Pasco school board candidate.
The Franklin Republican Party’s website claims Donald Trump is still president, and has a section titled “2020 Sham Election/Audits,” which includes links to articles promoting conspiracy theories about the election and the attack on the Capitol.
Wrongful death
Taranto has been accused of handing David Walls-Kaufmann a weapon, which was then used to beat a Capitol police officer after rioters breached the building.
Officer Smith died by suicide when he was scheduled to return to work nine days later.
Smith’s widow said in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, published Thursday, that two medical examiners “have testified that post-concussive syndrome and brain injury were the real causes of (her husband’s) death” because the concussion he suffered led to severe depression and suicide. The widow is asking for $7 million total in compensatory and punitive damages.
She has been fighting for her husband’s death to be recognized as a result of protecting the Capitol, and questions why Kaufmann and Taranto still have not been criminally charged.
“I miss my husband every minute of every day. I long for his death to be recognized as in the line of duty,” Smith wrote. “His sacrifice deserves to be remembered and his legacy honored by having his name etched on the Law Enforcement Memorial wall. I hope that his sacrifice can help many other future officers. But, for now, I continue to wait for justice.”
In early December, Taranto, who is representing himself, filed a motion to dismiss the case and an amendment to the motion. Neither has been ruled on yet.
In the motion, Taranto said he has been unable to find a lawyer to represent him “due to the plaintiff’s claims being criminal in nature, but being brought forth as a civil suit.”
Facebook video
Taranto was named in the lawsuit after he reportedly outed himself in a July 15 Facebook post that includes an 18-second, close-up video where he talks about being “in the Capitol building, the legislative building.” People can be heard shouting in the background.
A screenshot of the post showed it included the comment: “This is me ‘stormin’ the capitol’ lol I’m only sharing this so someone will report me to the feds and we can get this party rolling!”
A HuffPost Politics story about the initial lawsuit filing says that Taranto was one of two men, identified by online sleuths, who allegedly confronted Officer Smith just inside the Capitol building’s second-floor doors.
The sleuths, who call themselves #SeditionHunters, combed through hours of amateur footage to find out what happened to Smith that day, the story said. They noted that one of the men was wearing a “Make Space Great Again” hat and wielding a black cane with a sharp tip, believed to be a KA-BAR TDI Self-Defense Cane.
Counterclaim
In his response to the wrongful death suit, Taranto filed a counterclaim and a request to dismiss the case.
Taranto is challenging the assertions that he contributed to Smith’s death by handing Kaufmann a weapon.
He said that the claim that he handed Kaufmann a defense cane or other weapon is contradictory to news reports that the officer was beaten with his own baton. He also said that if he were responsible, he would have been criminally charged by now.
Taranto said he has not been formally questioned by law enforcement, but he suspects plain clothes officers might have been trying to talk to him at local events or online.
“So far no one has knocked on the door. No one (in law enforcement) has questioned me, to my knowledge. It’s all rather strange,” he told the Herald. “If I was even remotely linked to what they’re saying, you’d think I’d be in handcuffs right now, and with the way the justice system is working right now, it’s rather ugly.”
In the counterclaim, he called Smith’s death by suicide “an Act of God” claiming that his death was “caused by other circumstances in his life not directly or indirectly attributable to what happened at the Capitol.”
As a result of the lawsuit, Taranto claims he has suffered mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, loss of society, and loss of reputation.
“I’ve had people ask me to step aside, and down, from things like volunteer efforts. I’ve had people attack me verbally,” Taranto said. “I’ve had family members disown me. That’s just to name a few.”
Taranto is asking for $1 million in judgment from Smith, plus punitive damages in the amount of $2.5 million plus court costs and a public apology.
Claiming innocence
“The original claim that was filed by Mr. Weber (Smith’s attorney) is absolutely not true, it is materially not true. You should ask Weber why he no longer wants a jury trial,” Taranto said. “Maybe he knows public opinion will ultimately outweigh his claims. No one has been charged or arrested for any crimes, such as insurrection.”
The most recent court filings do not show any requests by the plaintiff to waive trial by jury. The case is in the pre-trial conference phase, which is typically when lawyers work with the court to hammer out details, including what evidence will be presented in court, before a trial date is set.
Documents show that Taranto and Weber have spoken via email and had a conference call.
Taranto said the plaintiffs are misrepresenting what happened at the Capitol in the lawsuit, but when asked he would not say whether he was misidentified in the videos.
When asked if he could explain what he was doing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Taranto responded with “no comment.” He later added that he was unsure what he could say due to the ongoing litigation.
Political persecution
Taranto contends Congress is sitting on evidence that could exonerate people.
U.S. Capitol Police have provided more than 14,000 hours of video footage to various investigative bodies.
“They’re sitting there with all these hours of footage that we cant see as the public, as taxpayers and we’re being charged, politically persecuted, and it’s all rather alarming and it’s sick,” Taranto said.
The belief that Congress is hiding footage, stems from law enforcement’s refusal to release footage unrelated to their cases to defendants out of fear the footage could be used to plan another attack, according to Politico.
Capitol Police General Counsel Thomas DiBiase told lawmakers last March, “Our concern is that providing unfettered access to hours of extremely sensitive information to defendants who have already shown a desire to interfere with the democratic process will result in the layout, vulnerabilities and security weaknesses of the Capitol being collected, exposed and passed on to those who might wish to attack the Capitol again.”
Taranto believes a man named Ray Epps is central to the alleged coverup, and that law enforcement is hiding footage of him.
Taranto said Congress should subpoena Epps, who U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on Thursday was a provocateur sent to incite the attack.
Epps is an Arizona man who was seen on video encouraging people to go to the Capitol once President Trump was finished speaking on Jan. 6.
He has not been charged with any crimes, leading some to believe he was an agitator. According to the New York Times, Epps is a past president of the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers.
Claims that Epps was part of a “false flag operation” and other conspiracy theories increased dramatically in the days before the anniversary of the attack.
Insurrection
In his counterclaim, Taranto also took exception to the lawsuit characterizing the events and people involved as insurrectionists, claiming “the Justice Department has not charged anyone for ‘insurrection.’”
While it is true no formal insurrection charges have been brought forth, prosecutors have repeatedly used the term in describing the attack.
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to criminal justice reporting, said most rioters involved in the attack would likely be charged with crimes that “fall under the broad — and less serious — ban on committing ‘unlawful activities’ on Capitol grounds, from ‘violent entry’ to property destruction to disorderly conduct.”
They noted that official charges of insurrection have rarely in the history of the United States been levied because the charge is difficult to prove in court. Prosecutors instead opt for lesser charges they believe have a better chance of succeeding.
Domestic terrorism
District of Columbia prosecutors recently filed a massive lawsuit against the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and dozens of individual members, including a Pendleton, Ore. man.
In the District of Columbia’s civil suit against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine refers to Jan. 6 as “not a protest or a rally. It was a coordinated act of domestic terrorism.”
Racine describes in detail how Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes himself used the term insurrection to describe the coordinated actions of those attacking the Capitol.
“We’re going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country. Because if you don’t guys, you’re going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war, and a bloody — you can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or fight,” Rhodes told Oath Keepers members in a Nov. 9, 2020, virtual meeting, according to court documents.
Pendleton, Ore., brothers Matthew Klein, 25, and Jonathanpeter Klein, 22, face multiple criminal charges. The younger brother also is named as an individual defendant in the civil suit brought by the District of Columbia because of his alleged involvement in helping coordinate the attack.
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
