Washington (AFP) - Two protesters among the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol in January have been charged with assaulting a police officer with bear spray before he died, authorities said Monday.
Officer Brian Sicknick died of injuries suffered during the riot, but his cause of death has not been confirmed.
The justice department said two men, aged 32 and 39, were arrested and charged with assault involving a chemical substance, allegedly a spray designed to deter wild bears, among other counts. They were not charged with homicide.
Video footage showed one of the men "holding a canister in his right hand and aiming it at the officers' direction," according to an affidavit.
Three policemen, including Sicknick, "reacted to being sprayed in the face. The officers retreated, bringing their hands to their faces and rushing to find water to wash out their eyes," it added.
Sicknick, 42, returned to his office where he collapsed and was taken to the hospital and died the next day.
In total five people died during the attack as the protesters tried to disrupt the formal certification of President Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the presidential election.
As a tribute, Sicknick was given the rare status of lying in honor at the building housing the US Congress, where Biden paid his respects.
Investigators determined he did not die of blunt force trauma, The Washington Post reported Monday, after he was earlier reported to have been struck on the head with a fire extinguisher.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for his role in inciting the attack on the Capitol but acquitted by the upper chamber Senate.
