Media Blackout: Actions of Metropolitan Police Officer Who Beat Unconscious Jan 6 Protestor Ruled ‘Objectively Reasonable’

 

Who was Rosanne Boyland?

Most Americans couldn’t tell you because outside of the conservative media, there has been little to no coverage of this young woman’s brutal death on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Epoch Times’ Joseph Hanneman reported this week that, according to witnesses, after the Capitol Police deployed tear gas into the crowd trying to enter the building on that fateful day, Boyland was “pinned to the ground” under a “pile of protesters who had fled the tunnel.”

Witnesses told The Epoch Times that Boyland had slipped into unconsciousness and appeared to have “stopped breathing.” Inexplicably, a video shows DC Metropolitan Police Department Officer Lila Morris “repeatedly struck her [the unconscious Boyland] with a steel baton and what appeared to be a wooden walking stick.”

Following an investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau of the MPD, Boyland’s death was determined to be “objectively reasonable,” according to Hanneman’s report.

Odd huh?

Morris’ astonishing actions appear to be anything but reasonable.

It won’t surprise you to hear that Boyland, 34, was a Trump supporter.

The report indicates that Boyland, of Kennesaw, Georgia, had traveled to Washington, D.C. with her friend Justin Winchell, whose “shock” over seeing Morris hit Boyland in the head, was captured on police bodycam video.

Winchell is seen begging police and his fellow protestors to help his friend. He shouts, “She’s gonna die! She’s gonna die! … I need somebody! She’s dead!”

According to Hanneman, the video shows several protestors performing CPR on Boyland. These efforts, he explains “were frustrated in part by the beating and police spraying pepper spray into the faces of those trying to help.”

Ninety minutes later, Boyland was pronounced dead.

The autopsy conducted by the Washington, D.C., medical examiner ruled the cause of death to be an overdose of Adderall, a drug prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Her father, Bret Boyland, told Hanneman this conclusion is highly unlikely given that his daughter has been taking this medication for ten years.

The outrage from her friends and family members is warranted. This finding is, of course, preposterous. After being trampled by a crowd and then beaten with a steel baton and a wooden stick, a partisan medical examiner claims that medication she’d taken for a decade had suddenly caused her death.

Had it not been for the efforts of Decatur, Texas, resident Gary McBride, whom Hanneman writes studied hours of footage from Jan. 6, the MPD never would have opened an investigation into Boyland’s death in the first place. In September 2021, eight months after the Capitol riot, McBride confronted the MPD with his collection of videos and filed a police brutality complaint against Officer Morris.

On Nov. 15, McBride received an email from Capt. David K. Augustine, director of the Risk Management Division of the MPD Internal Affairs Bureau, which said, “The use of force within this investigation was determined to be objectively reasonable. Officer Morris is still employed with the MPD and not facing criminal charges related to the use of force on January 6.”

McBride told Hanneman, “It told me right there that it’s OK for them to do what they do. They are doing exactly what they want to do. They don’t care if you know or see.”

“They just showed me that they’re going to go beat somebody and kill them, but they have the power to say, ‘That was objectively reasonable.’ And we’re supposed to accept that and say, ‘Okay,’” he said.

McBride explained that although Boyland was unconscious, she reacted physically to Morris’ blows. “When she takes that second hit to the head, watch her left arm, her left arm straightens up and lifts off the ground.”

Hanneman reported that during an interview last year with an Atlanta media outlet, Winchell said that Boyland’s nose had begun to bleed after Morris’ final blow.

Questioned about this by The Epoch Times, her father said, “In our mind, she was still alive at that point.”

Hanneman described what he had seen in the recordings. “Officer Morris, who had just reached the front line in the West Terrace tunnel, is seen on bodycam video picking up what appears to be a walking stick or a tree branch. She raised the weapon over her head with both hands and struck Boyland at least four times in rapid succession. The stick broke at one point. Morris continued to strike at Boyland until other officers pulled her back.”

Why would a police officer do that? Why did the MPD have to be forced into opening an investigation into such irrational behavior?

Not only was Morris given a pass for her egregious actions, Hanneman notes that the following month, she appeared as a “guest of honor” at Super Bowl LIV in Tampa where she was “hailed as a hero.”

One of the videos McBride sent to the MPD can be viewed here. (Warning: This video contains obscene language and graphic content.)

The other is unavailable on the internet.

Bret Boyland filed a FOIA request with the MPD for “copies of bodycam video from various police officers in the terrace tunnel” which was denied.

In an October email message, Shania Hughes, a FOIA specialist with the MPD, wrote: “It has been determined that the information you are seeking is part of an ongoing investigation and criminal proceeding. With exception of the portions of the video that has been shown publicly, MPD cannot fulfill your request. The release of this information could interfere with the enforcement proceedings by revealing the direction and pace of the investigation.”

Although it took many attempts, Boyland did finally manage to obtain the autopsy report.

Finally, Hanneman spoke to Philip Anderson of Mesquite, Texas, 26, whom he reported had been “at the bottom of the same pile that had crushed Boyland, was appalled by the result of the MPD’s investigation. He called it “absolute [expletive].”

“There is nothing reasonable about hitting a non-responsive woman lying on the ground over the head with a baton. They say it’s reasonable because she (Boyland) was a Trump supporter.

“The fact that they have been lying from the beginning is reason enough for investigation. The only reason why anyone even knows this is because I barely survived and am here to now call out their blatant lies (about) the woman that they killed,” Anderson said.

The Biden Department of Justice issued a press release last April to announce they had closed their investigation into the death of Ashli Babbitt, the thirty five-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot dead by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on Jan. 6. The DOJ said they “will not pursue criminal charges against the officer involved.”

The statement explains that not only would prosecutors have to prove that “the officer used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that the officer did so ‘willfully,’ which the Supreme Court has interpreted to mean that the officer acted with a bad purpose to disregard the law. As this requirement has been interpreted by the courts, evidence that an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent required under Section 242.”

Would the DOJ also say that Morris “had acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment?”

Probably. It’s the Biden Administration way. They protect their own.

Like the DOJ’s conclusion in the Byrd case, the MPD’s ruling is evidence of the two-tier system of justice in America.

Hopefully, Republicans will retake the House in November which will allow them to conduct proper investigations into the deaths of both Babbitt and Boyland.

But there’s much that can and must be done in the meantime.

Conservatives need to stand up against the weaponization of government agencies against Trump supporters. Taking full advantage of their current lock on power in Washington, Democrats have shredded the Constitution.

The conservative media has become far more effective at exposing the Democrats’ corruption and propaganda. Strong Republican politicians are pushing back as well. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s brilliant annihilation of a Biden nominee during a Senate confirmation hearing last week was a masters class in how it’s done.

And the American people are starting to wake up to the fact that this administration has put the U.S. on a direct path toward authoritarianism. The plunging viewer ratings for networks such as CNN and MSNBC show that people are starting to catch on.

Like the Freedom Convoy truckers, conservatives need to fight back through civil disobedience. Now. Because America’s future depends on it.

 

A version of this article was previously published by The Western Journal.
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