A jury in Washington has granted $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who took his own life nine days after defending the U.S. Capitol during a riot. The incident involved a confrontation with a rioter.
The jury, consisting of eight members, determined that 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman should pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith. This was for the assault on her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, during the January 6, 2021, events at the Capitol. Jeffrey Smith’s estate received an additional $60,000 for pain and suffering.
Before the jury began discussions last week, the judge overseeing the trial, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, dismissed Erin Smith’s wrongful-death lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman. Judge Reyes stated that there was insufficient evidence for any reasonable juror to believe that Walls-Kaufman’s actions could have caused a traumatic brain injury, leading to Smith’s death.
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On Friday, the jury sided with Erin Smith and held Walls-Kaufman liable for assaulting her 35-year-old husband — an encounter captured on the officer’s body camera.
“Erin is grateful to receive some measure of justice,” said David P. Weber, one of her attorneys.
Walls-Kaufman said the outcome of the trial is “absolutely ridiculous.”
“No crime happened. I never struck the officer. I never intended to strike the officer,” he said. “I’m just stunned.”
After the jury left the courtroom, Reyes encouraged the parties to confer and discuss a possible settlement to avoid the time and expense of an appeal and for the sake of “finality.”
“You guys settle, you can move on with your lives,” the judge said.
Walls-Kaufman’s attorney, Hughie Hunt, described the jury’s award as “shocking.”
“We’re talking about a three-second event,” he told the judge.
“It’s not shocking, Mr. Hunt. A lot of things can happen in three seconds,” Reyes replied.
Jeffrey Smith was driving to work for the first time after the Capitol riot when he shot and killed himself with his service weapon. His family said he had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot. Erin Smith claims Walls-Kaufman struck her husband in the head with his own police baton, giving him a concussion and causing psychological and physical trauma that led to his suicide.
Walls-Kaufman, who lived a few blocks from the Capitol, denied 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.
The police department medically evaluated Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. In 2022, the District of Columbia Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined that Smith was injured in the line of duty and the injury was the “sole and direct cause of his death,” according to the lawsuit.
Walls-Kaufman served a 60-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to a Capitol riot-related misdemeanor in January 2023, but he was pardoned in January. On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.
More than 100 law-enforcement officers were injured during the riot. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died a day 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.
