“Her death, her murder haunts me,” wrote Ronald McAbee.
In an emotional letter to her parents, one of the men who tried to save 34-year-old Roseanne Boyland, who lost her life on January 6, 2021, on the Lower West Terrace of the United States Capitol, told her parents what had happened. I told you that I was annoyed by He vowed to keep her story alive until justice was brought to the case.
In a handwritten note to Brett and Cheryl Boyland of Kennesaw, Georgia, Ronald “Colt” McCabe wrote, “I apologize for taking two years to say this. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to her in time. Lord knows I tried.”
Brett Boyland told The Epoch Times that his family is grateful that McAbee and others risked their lives to help their daughter. No,” Boyland said.
Two years after chaos and riots rocked the U.S. Capitol, Rosanne Boyland’s violent death explains why peaceful protesters were beaten unwittingly and how police who stood nearby helped. It continues to provoke calls for a congressional inquiry into why it did not provide
McAbee, then a Tennessee sheriff’s deputy, was one of the men who worked desperately to revive her after she collapsed and was beaten with a cane by D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer Lila Morris. .
Federal prosecutors have indicted McAbee for various felonies and misdemeanors beginning Jan. 6. In September 2021, a Tennessee federal magistrate ordered McAbee to be released pending trial, but the U.S. District Court’s Emmett Judge Sullivan ordered McAbee to be detained indefinitely. His trial is scheduled for September.
“Reasonable” use of force?
The Metropolitan Police Department ruled that all of the January 6 use of force, including Morris’ attack on Boyland, was “objectively reasonable.” No charges were filed in this case.
“The police beat us with sticks and batons and sprayed us every time we approached her,” McAbee wrote to the Boyland family. “They didn’t try to help her while she was lying there. They pushed people over her, beat her while she was down, reached her I stepped on her to hit people.”
Rosanne Boyland climbed the steps to the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance at 4:18 pm and rushed into the tunnel with dozens of other protesters. There was some serious violence in and around the tunnel for much of the afternoon, but it was calm at the time.
Two minutes later, police released a chemical stimulus into the tunnel. Witnesses said the gas had replaced oxygen, making it impossible to breathe. Protesters turned and ran toward the entrance, causing a stampede.
At the same time, police in riot gear pushed the crowd toward the entrance, creating a pile of people spilling down the concrete steps. Boyland was among dozens of protesters who collapsed and were trapped. A man from Texas, also trapped in the mountains, held her hand as she lost consciousness.
In “The Real Story of Jan. 6,” Stan Keffert, an expert on the use of force by police forces, said that releasing gas in tunnels was part of industry guidelines for the proper use of crowd control chemicals. said it was a reckless decision to violate.
McAbee stood right next to where Boyland lay unconscious when Morris began beating the woman with a hardened cane that he had seized from the mob minutes earlier.
“It is an assault under the color of authority intended to cause great bodily harm,” Keffert said in the Epoch Times film. He was about to hit her and seriously injure her.”
Dallas protester Luke Coffee stepped in, holding up aluminum medical crutches as a wall between the crowd and the line of police. Volunteers in the crowd started CPR on him. As attempts were made to revive her, Maccabee built a room around Boyland.
Standing next to McAbee during CPR at Boyland was Villain Phoenix, the late Villain Report podcaster. He was filming a video in a tunnel when the stampede started. He said he saw Boyland fall.
“Some people started CPR on her. I tried to take her carotid pulse for a few minutes,” he said live on Jan. 6. Totally femoral. I tried 1-2 minutes on both.
“She had blue lips and her nose was bleeding,” Villan said. “She was pretty cyanotic. She seemed totally hopeless. I don’t think she’ll come back to life.” bottom.
Maccabee and a group of men picked up Boyland and carried her in front of the police. He briefly started CPR on him before being pulled away by another protester. Boyland was then dragged into the Capitol by police officers. Inside her, police SWAT team members and paramedics began a 50-minute effort to save her.
A DC coroner determined that Boyland died from an amphetamine overdose prescribed by Adderall, rather than from a rush or assault. Boylands disputed this finding. An independent forensic pathologist hired by the family determined that the death was due to manual asphyxiation.
“I hold the police accountable every day,” McAbee wrote in a letter to Boyland. “Her death, her murder haunts me. responsible”
thanks for the help
Brett Boyland said he didn’t want Maccabee to feel responsible for Roseanne’s death.
“We want to thank you for trying to help our daughter Roseanne and for trying to get the officials to do something,” Boyland told The Epoch Times. “He doesn’t have to blame himself. The Capitol Police and MPD are to blame.
“Months after our daughter’s death, we watched countless videos of the scene where Roseanne fell and read the testimonies of many protesters that day,” Brett Boyland said. “We will always be grateful to the protesters who risked their own lives to try to save her Roseanne and get her police to help her.”
Sarah McAbee has said the death of Roseanne Boyland has weighed heavily on her husband since January 6.
“I thought it was a beautiful letter written from Colt’s heart,” Sarah McAbee told the Epoch Times. I know you’re struggling with the reality that you can.. The Boyland family will never get their daughter back.
“He is not reconciled to the situation because no real justice has been served,” McAbee said. “He tried his best to save Roseanne, but he couldn’t.”
The letter to Boyland wasn’t Ronald McCabe’s first letter to the outside world since his arrest in August 2021. Mailed to his home to his wife. The letter was, in part, a self-encouragement story that convinced him that “you won’t break.”
In December 2022, McAbee sent another birthday letter to her future free self, this time from Central Virginia Regional Prison.
In it, he thanked the serious attention his criminal case and his willingness to be released pending trial. Louie Gohmert (Republican, Texas) read part of an Epoch Times article about Maccabee in the House of Representatives on Nov. 16.
McCaby wrote that he was proud to have endured imprisonment for refusing to wear a COVID mask in early September 2022.
“You have refused to stay in the fight and bow to this tyrannical government and judicial system,” he wrote. never forget.”
