Forensic video analysis outlines just how Rosanne Boyland was killed by her fellow insurrectionists

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday January 16, 2021 · 9:54 AM PST

2021/01/16 · 09:54

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

As we settle into this, our last weekend with Donald Trump occupying the nation’s highest office, it seems there’s new evidence and analysis, each day, that illustrate more vividly than before the horrors of the Jan. 6 mass insurrection. The New York Times is no exception, releasing Saturday the results of a quite thorough, if sickening, forensic investigation of the death of Rosanne Boyland. The 34-year-old Trump supporter has been rumored to have been trampled to death by her fellow self-styled “patriots” during the crisis.

Boyland’s brother-in-law, former HGTV host Justin Cave, emerged as the family spokesperson the day after she died in the Capitol siege. Cave didn't hesitate to lay blame at the feet of the worst president this nation has ever had. “(I)t’s my own personal belief that the president’s words incited a riot that killed four of his biggest fans last night and I believe that we should invoke the 25th Amendment at this time.”

The Times analysis of what appear to be Boyland’s trampling indicates that her corner of the attack was an intense one. Honestly, photos of the crowd make it seem like a miracle that more trampling deaths didn’t result from the maniacal rush to break into the Capitol. As with Ashli Babbitt—the Air Force veteran turned QAnon supporter shot to death while trying to breach a barricaded and well-guarded area of the building, clearly labeled as the Speaker’s Lobby—it can be struggle for many to generate much sympathy for those who lost their lives as they sought to overthrow our government. We’re curious about who they were or how they got radicalized, of course, including the 100+ arrestees so far. How did they get to the point where, when Trump said “jump,” they asked “how many members of Congress should we kill?” How did they get to the point where they killed their own?

This is not the story of how Rosanne Boyland got radicalized. This is the story of how she got killed by a teeming mob of her fellow true believers.

Boyland and her buddy Justin Winchell drove up from Kennesaw, Georgia, for Trump’s “Save America” rally, and managed to arrive at a second-floor promenade on the west side of the Capitol, before they were stopped at a tunnel that, before the insurgency, was most recognizable as the one traversed by presidents and other VIPs during inauguration.

US President Barack Obama (top L) and Vice-President Joe Biden arrive with New York Senator John Chuck Schumer Representative Nancy Pelosi on the platform at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2017, before the swearing-in ceremony of US President-elect Donald Trump. / AFP / Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Let’s zoom out for context and orientation. See that red-trimmed arch in the center of this photo from Jan. 20, 2017? That’s the tunnel.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: President Donald Trump takes the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. In today's inauguration ceremony Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

That’s where The Times’ forensic journalists place Boyland and Winchell during the events that took her life; The Times notes that the tunnel was guarded, so the rioters immediately encountered “a line of riot police” who pushed them back in a lengthy battle for the tunnel that started around 2:30 p.m. According to Winchell’s account to an Atlanta CBS affiliate, Boyland fell to the ground when the crowd pushed back. "I put my arm underneath her and was pulling her out, and then another guy fell on top of her, and another guy was just walking (on top of her)," Winchell said. "There were people stacked two to three deep ... people just crushed.”

Winchell, predictably, neither blames Trump, nor his fellow insurrectionists, nor himself for his actions, and certainly not for the attack. Instead, he blames antifa. “She was killed by an incited event, and it was not incited by Trump supporters,” he told CBS 46.

Facts, of course, paint quite a different picture. Winchell and Boyland didn’t actually make it to the front of the tunnel fray for some time; video analyzed by The Times first catches Winchell there—already searching for Boyland, who had already fallen—shortly after 4 p.m. Other men joined the fight to rescue the unconscious insurrectionist, to bring her to police officers for help, even as their fellow rioters attacked those same police officers. Paramedics navigated the havoc and found Capitol Police officers performing CPR on Boyland in the Rotunda, but it was too late. At 6:09 p.m. on Jan. 6, the Georgia woman—a recovering addict-turned conspiracy theorist who had big dreams of helping others find sobriety—was declared dead.

The Times’ forensic analysis is accessible and necessary reading to anyone attempting to make some sense of the violence of Jan. 6. It’s also punctuated by short video clips that show more mass fervor than they do Boyland’s actual demise; it’s fleeting glimpses of her sweatshirt logo and backpack strap that are instrumental in identifying her, rather than the clear images of, say, Babbitt’s final moments. If nothing else, the scope of the work done by journalists Evan Hill, Arielle Ray and Dahlia Kozlowsky offers just a glimpse at the project facing investigators as they seek to build precise timelines of events and clear identification of the many participants in Trump’s attack on the U.S. government.

Forensic video analysis outlines just how Rosanne Boyland was killed by her fellow insurrectionists

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