Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake gracefully handled an attack ad that featured the mother of deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who blamed Lake and “people like her” for her son’s death.
In the video ad, paid for by the Republican Accountability PAC, Gladys Sicknick is heard introducing herself as “the mother of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police Officer who died defending our country on January 6.”
“My son died because of people like Kari Lake,” Sicknick says in the ad.
“Kari Lake is very dangerous for our country,” she continues. “She saw what happened on January 6, and continues to spread the big lie.”
“We’re gonna have more violence because people – they believe whatever she says – it’s very dire for our democracy, for our country, with the candidates like Kari Lake,” Sicknick states.
Lake handled the attack ad gracefully, offering Gladys Sicknick her sincere sympathy based on the fact they are both mothers.
“As a mother, here was my response,” Lake posted to Twitter.
A CBS reporter just asked me about the latest desperate attack ad accusing ME of causing the death of a Capitol Police Officer.
As a mother, here was my response: pic.twitter.com/dol7OEFQaw
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 2, 2022
“I’m so sorry about the death of your son,” she said to Sicknick’s mother.
“It is tragic,” she stated. “I’m a mother myself. It breaks my heart.”
“That is a wound, when you lose a child — no matter how old they are — that never heals,” Lake continued:
So, I don’t want to disparage her. She doesn’t know me. I wasn’t anywhere near the Capitol on January 6th. And I understand that her son died, I think the following day, of a stroke or natural causes, and I feel for her. And I see the pain in her eyes. And I would never try to disparage or hurt her, because I know when a mother has pain like that, there’s no way to heal that.
As American Wire News observed, medical examiner Francisco Diaz, who conducted the autopsy on Brian Sicknick, determined he died from natural causes after suffering two strokes following the events on January 6.
Brian Sicknick died from natural causes, medical examiner rules https://t.co/VEVKbfm5n2
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) April 20, 2021
No evidence of internal or external injuries to the officer during events at the Capitol that day was discovered.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported:
The New York Times reported on Jan. 8 that two unnamed law enforcement officials said Sicknick died after being hit with a fire extinguisher. House Democrats cited the report as part of its case to impeach Trump on charges that he cited an insurrection at the Capitol.
…
There has also been speculation that Sicknick died from a reaction to bear spray that was dispensed at the Capitol. Federal prosecutors charged two men last month with hitting Sicknick and several other police officers with the chemical irritant outside the Capitol.
“The insurrectionists killed a Capitol Police officer by striking him in the head with a fire extinguisher,” House Democrats wrote in a memo for the impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump, the report said.
Diaz’s ruling appeared to rule out bear spray reaction as a cause of death as well.
Lake continued she understands the issues affecting mothers in Arizona, who have also lost children due to the flood of fentanyl coming across the southern border.
“When they tell me they lost a son to fentanyl, they lost a daughter to fentanyl poisoning — this is why we are pushing so hard to secure that border and stop fentanyl from pouring across,” Lake said.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Kari Lake.
