Capitol Police officer’s widow presses Congress for 1/6 Commission

Liebengood lends her voice to those calling for a bipartisan commission to probe the origins of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the security failures that enabled rioters to violently overtake the Capitol that day. She is also calling the events “a unique and important opportunity to honor Howie” by pursuing structural reforms to the Capitol Police that focus on mental health.

“The USCP must be held accountable for its actions and structural reforms instituted; and the mental and emotional well-being of these officers can no longer be overlooked or taken for granted,” she writes.

Howard Liebengood, a veteran Capitol Police officer whose father also spent a career working for the institution, was one of three officers who died following the Jan. 6 attack. Officer Brian Sicknick’s death, which came on Jan. 7, hours after he was assaulted by rioters wielding bear spray, has been treated as a “line of duty” death, according to Yogananda Pittman, the acting chief of the Capitol Police, though an investigation is still underway to determine his precise cause of death. Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith also took his own life in the days after the assault on the Capitol.

Wexton, who represents the Liebengood family in Congress, criticized Pittman during a hearing examining the Capitol Police leadership’s handling of the Jan. 6 riot. When she pressed Pittman on the agency’s decision not to immediately classify Liebengood’s death as “line of duty,” Pittman declined to provide details.

“I can’t speak to that at this time, ma’am,” Pittman said. “It’s still under active investigation.”

Serena Liebengood’s public outreach could be significant. The leaders of the 9/11 Commission following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington have long credited the advocacy of the victims’ families with spurring Congress to act and ensure a fulsome review of what transpired. That outside advocacy from victims of the Jan. 6 attack has largely been absent, but Liebengood said she intends to change that.

Liebengood says her family “is still reeling” from the loss of her husband and the events of Jan. 6 and intends to use this moment to push other lawmakers to pursue after-action measures like a 1/6 commission to fully understand what transpired.

“The Liebengood family wants Howie’s death to not have been in vain,” she writes. “Recognition of the cause of his death, much like the critical examination of the riot itself, will remain central to how we make right those tragedies and help avoid their repetition.”

In a statement Thursday morning, Acting Capitol Police Chief Yoganands Pittman acknowledged Serena Liebengood’s letter, saying “The USCP family continues to mourn the tragic and untimely death of Officer Howie Liebengood, whose family and friends I have prayed with and consoled.”

“The Department has provided Howie’s family with its much-deserved death gratuity payment,” Pittman said. “While I want to support the Liebengood family to the maximum extent possible, Line of Duty Death declarations are given to officers who die while carrying out official law enforcement responsibilities. Even the deaths of the law enforcement officers who tragically took their own lives after the terrorist attack on September 11th were not considered Line of Duty Deaths.”

Pittman also defended USCP’s handling of mental health matters, saying “the Department has always made mental health resources available to our workforce and significantly increased those resources in size and scope after January 6th.”