To set the record straight, Boyland most likely did not die of a drug overdose as was initially reported. Nothing was straightforward about her death. She was being crushed under a pile of people, repeatedly hammered by munitions and soaked with mace, and she was beaten with a stick by Officer Lila Morris while unconscious. A second coroner later evaluated the incident from video evidence and found she may have died from "compressional asphyxia."
Epoch Times reporter Joseph Hanneman wrote in his Oct. 30, 2023 column that Boyland's family challenged Coroner Roger Mitchell's "official cause of death" that listed amphetamine toxicity as a cause. Mitchell has determined the cause of death for many J6 cases. Notably, he was allegedly also the same coroner who weighed in on George Floyd's death. He allegedly pressured the coroner in Minnesota to say Officer Chauvin was responsible for Floyd's death. However, it has since been revealed that the original coroner said drugs were a significant factor in Floyd's death.
Boyland family members have been pained by their suspicions of inaccurate cause of death information and reporting. So the family hired, according to Hanneman, "an independent forensic pathologist who said Ms. Boyland most likely died of compressional asphyxia, not from Adderall or illegal drugs." Nevertheless, Hanneman mentions that, as recently as Oct. 12, the Washington Post was still reporting she died of a "methamphetamine overdose." The Post later "corrected the error," but the damage had already been done. This is a good example of how important it is to get the reporting right first. More often than not, people remember the first headline they see. Also notable is the fact that Boyland was cremated, destroying all evidence. According to David Sumrall, a J6 investigator, the family told him they couldn't afford to have their daughter's body shipped home, so they agreed to her cremation under duress.
UncoverDC spoke with Tommy Tatum, whose leg was trapped in a "human pile" right next to the very human pile that contributed to Boyland's death. Tatum witnessed Boyland's death firsthand. He has also reviewed available footage from the incident. Tatum testified about Boyland's death in June in the case of J6 defendant Brian Mock. Independent journalists Shawn Witzemann and Mel Hawley reported on the trial.
Tatum told the court multiple times (Judge Boasberg) that he "witnessed the murder of Rosanne Boyland by (D.C. Metro) Officer Lila Morris." Boasberg called Tatum's account "make-believe," according to Hawley, who was present in the courtroom. It is still uncertain as to whether Lila Morris was ultimately responsible for Boyland's death, but it is certain she contributed with the blows of her baton on the unconscious and distressed Boyland. Fortunately, Tatum has never been indicted for his presence on the Capitol grounds even though he has testified in court, been very vocal about J6, and spoken with members of Congress about having witnessed Boyland's death.
Timeline of Events Surrounding the Death of Roseanne Boyland
Video camera footage on a Sedition Hunters spreadsheet shows that Boyland arrived on the lower west terrace of the Capitol grounds at 3:24:48 p.m. At 4:16:50 p.m., Boyland is first visible on security footage outside the tunnel entrance. By 4:20:12 p.m., she is seen far inside the tunnel, crowded by a mob of other protestors. At 4:20:30 p.m., officers begin to push the crowd back out of the tunnel, resulting in a "pile-up of people," according to the video released by the Epoch Times.
It is complete and utter chaos, as reported by other J6ers interviewed by UncoverDC. Officers are pepper spraying and beating people with their batons. Many protestors try to take the officers' batons to protect themselves and others from the beatings. The crowd begins to worry Boyland has died. Some protestors yell, "She's gonna die. She's gonna die." Another protestor, Justin Winchell, screams, "She's dead. She's dead." At this point, Boyland is lying on the ground (4:26:58 p.m.) outside the tunnel entrance, and Winchell attempts to roll her on her back.
At around 4:28 p.m., protestors pull Boyland down some steps and to the side, and they attempt CPR. At around 4:30 p.m., officers pull her inside while protestors throw things at them. By then, the protestors are scared and angry. Between 4:40-4:46 p.m., some of the officers and protestors drag her to safety inside, where she is treated in two locations. She had to be moved to a second location in the East Wing (4:46-4:49 p.m.) because the tear gas was so heavy. They attempt to resuscitate her using a variety of methods. EMS personnel worked on her for approximately 30 minutes, and at about 5:19 p.m., she was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Boyland was declared dead at 6:09 p.m. at George Washington University Hospital.
While Boyland was lying unconscious on the ground outside the tunnel entrance, D.C. police officer Lila Morris continually hits Boyland multiple times with a wooden stick which is all shown on the Epoch Times video. Disturbingly, Morris may have intended to hurt Trump supporters. StopHate obtained a sworn declaration from J6 defendant Troy Smocks, who was held in the D.C. gulag. Smocks also gave the affidavit to Rep. Gohmert. Smocks positively identified Morris after Jan. 6 to Sumrall in an interview.
D.C. police officer Lila Morris
On the morning of Jan. 6, Smocks overheard Morris answering the following about Trump supporters to a fellow officer in an excerpt from the sworn declaration below:
"I witnessed one of the male officers say, 'Morris did you get that shit from Capitol Police?--Talking about the mission change--Now, we ain't suppose to fuck up the Trump supporters--we only suppose to fuck up the anti-Trump supporters--what the fuck is that suppose to mean?—How we gonna know the difference?' The female officer (Morris) then responded, '[W]hen they call me, and I put all that shit on, I'm gonna go over there and fuck all of them up,—If they bring their dub white asses over to that Capitol, –I'm fucking them up.'"
Other Investigators Work to Tell the Story of J6 and Roseanne Boyland
UncoverDC spoke with David Sumrall, who is one of the few to have access to all the J6 footage. He has done painstaking work alongside J6 defendant Daniel Goodwyn to document every possible aspect of the day, all found on his StopHate website. Goodwyn went to prison for 39 days for walking through an open door and walking around for less than a minute. When asked to leave, he did. Goodwyn, who told UncoverDC he is autistic, has been using unique gifts to organize, catalog, and label massive amounts of information collected for the StopHate website. Because of his involvement in J6, it has been impossible for him to find a job. He also has massive legal bills because of Jan. 6.
Sumrall pointed UncoverDC toward a fascinating "documentary" released by D.C. Fire and EMS. Paramedics and EMTs in the footage say the use of tear gas and mace by the police was so excessive Roseanne had a pool of mace around her as she was being wheeled into the tunnel and East Wing.
According to Sumrall, another J6 defendant, Phillip Anderson, testified his clothing was so soaked with mace he had to throw his clothing away. Phillip also speaks to the life-saving measures of some that day, including Jake Lang, who tried to save Boyland's life. Sumrall's team wrote a story about "The Ugly Truth Behind the Five Deaths from January 6th and 7th." Sumrall has seen footage that shows the D.C. police broke the defibrillator in the tunnel "because they didn't know how to use it." Given the evidence now emerging in footage and reporting, it is almost impossible to reduce Boyland's death to a single cause.
Tommy Tatum confirmed the facts and timeline above to UncoverDC. However, he adds his perceptions of the incident as he struggled to deal with the munitions, the crowd, his leg, which at one point he thought might break, and the distress of having witnessed her horrible death.
Tatum recalls arriving at the West Side of the Capitol around 2:40 p.m. He had gone to D.C. to hear the President speak at the Ellipse but walked to the Capitol with the crowd. He also recorded many of the events that day. Curious to observe what was happening at the tunnel, he made his way over. Enroute to the Capitol, he saw many protestors struggling with tear gas in their eyes. There were allegedly huge clouds of mace and pepper spray floating around the crowd. When he arrived at the tunnel at around 4:20, he saw "cops beating up people."
Tatum says he is the first to find a video showing a cop at the 4:20 mark "take a pepper ball gun from the back of the tunnel and fire about 31 rounds of gas at the ceiling of the tunnel and all around." Tatum continues, "As soon as the cop fires the pepper balls and mace, you can hear the cops start gagging and freaking out coughing because the gas goes everywhere and gets on everybody." Just prior to the gas, the footage also shows officers attempting to "swap out gear so that all officers in the tunnel have gas masks," says Tatum. Rachel Powell and many others who were at the tunnel when Boyland died tell similar firsthand accounts of the event.
Tatum believes the rash of pepper balls was primarily responsible for the crowd's angry reaction. The "cops were also swinging their sticks, hitting us, and slinging people into us." At one point, Tatum falls because the crowd and the officers are pushing so hard. In addition, says Tatum, it wasn't Boyland who was screaming but another woman who was caught in the pile:
"There was this Mexican lady. She falls down, and her feet are right inside the tunnel entrance, and the rest of her is facing out toward the Washington Monument. People were trying to pull her out of the pile, and she was screaming the loudest, blood-curdling screams I have ever heard. Some of the defendants think the screaming was Roseanne screaming for her life, but it wasn't. She was unconscious and was bleeding from her nose and mouth. It was the Mexican lady who was screaming.
Roseanne was laying directly to my left. I am kind of sitting on my butt at this point, But then a whole bunch of people fall on top of my legs. My leg gets trapped, and my foot is on the other side of a rail. I could not get up and remember trying to grab my leg. I tried to pull it out and realized there was no way because my foot was sticking up and somebody laying on my leg. So I couldn't pull any further right on that rail. And I remember thinking my leg was going to break in half. I thought somebody's gonna fall on it, and leverage was going to break my leg.
Meanwhile, people were in all in a big, huge pile-up. There was a huge crowd, and they were all screaming, 'I can't breathe, I'm dying. Help, help.' And it goes on pretty much the whole time that we're on the ground. Some were losing consciousness. I could see people who, at first their eyes were wide, wide open; they were so scared. But as time went on, you could see their eyes were facing in. They weren't screaming as much. So I thought they were dying, and that was a completely different pile from Roseanne's. Roseanne was up on the step platform.
Jake Lang tried to pull me up. I told him not to because he would break my leg. I told him to go save the people where Roseanne was. He may have saved my life that day."
According to Tatum, the video here and here (graphic) from Gateway Pundit "is after Officer Lila Morris has struck Roseanne [warning: graphic footage] in the head, and the protestors pull her away from the cops and do CPR on her (around 4:28 p.m.)."
After Jan. 6, Tatum reported Roseanne Boyland's death by phone to the Capitol Police. He also called the FBI three times to report what he saw near the tunnel that day. Tatum presented the "Massie, Less Lethal Report," reported by UncoverDC, to Rep. Thomas Massie's counsel, Marshal Yates. American Gulag Chronicles funded Tatum's trip to D.C. The Massie Report was put together with the help of Daniel Goodwyn, David Sumrall, AJ Fischer, and J6 defendant Treniss Evans with CondemnedUSA. Concerning the circumstances of Boyland's tragic death, it seems she never stood a chance.
