Person of record

Benjamin Philips

Memorial — computer programmer and caregiver, died January 6, 2021

**IN MEMORIAM — BENJAMIN J. PHILIPS — 1970 to January 6, 2021** **A note on his name, first, because his family deserves it spelled right.** It is **Philips**. One L. That is how the funeral home spells it, how the family obituary spells it, and how the Philadelphia Inquirer spelled it. Almost every national outlet wrote "Phillips." Five years of coverage, and most of it got his name wrong. Benjamin Philips was fifty years old. He was a computer programmer with a computer science degree from Temple University. He had spent twenty-five years in Philadelphia, and he had recently moved home to Bloomsburg **to help take care of his mother, who has Alzheimer''s.** He was the father of two daughters. He was an only child. He loved animals so much that the one thing his family asked people to do in his memory was give money to an animal shelter. He collapsed on a sidewalk on the Capitol grounds at about one o''clock in the afternoon, behind the inauguration scaffolding, away from the crowd, and he died of heart disease. **He never went inside. He was never charged with anything. And he was gone before the violence started.** --- ## THE MAN Benjamin J. Philips was born in **Pottsville, Pennsylvania** in 1970 and raised in **Middleport**. He graduated from **Saint Clair High School in 1988.** **[FACT — family obituary]** He earned a **degree in computer science from Temple University**, and his family obituary describes his working life this way: **a freelance computer programmer, web developer and consultant for many businesses over his career.** **[FACT — family obituary]** Twenty-five years in Philadelphia building things for other people''s businesses. And then he came home. He told a reporter, days before he died, that he had recently moved to Bloomsburg **to help care for his mother, who has Alzheimer''s.** **[HIS OWN ACCOUNT]** Sit with that one for a second, because it is the whole measure of a man. A fifty-year-old freelancer, established in a city for a quarter century, packs up and moves back to coal country to take care of his mom while she is losing her memory. That is not a political act. There is no camera on it. It is just what a decent son does, and it is the single most important fact on this page. His parents are **James and Victoria Philips.** He was their **only child.** His daughters are **Taylor Philips and Morgan Philips.** His longtime companion was **Sandra Demarkis.** **[FACT — family obituary]** He was also, of all things, a **toy inventor.** He designed a stuffed kangaroo with orange hair and boxing gloves and started a small company to sell it. He called it Trumparoo. **[FACT]** A programmer who invented a plush kangaroo. There are worse epitaphs. ## WHAT HE BUILT Benjamin Philips built websites for a living, and in the fall of 2020 he built one of his own — **Trumparoo.com.** **[FACT]** Let us be accurate about what it was, because this gets described wrong constantly. It was **not a carpool app.** It was a small pro-Trump social network — posts, discussions, events, groups, state chapters, and a shop where he sold his kangaroo. He then **used** it to organize a trip. **[FACT — archived site]** And the trip he organized was a serious piece of logistics for one man working alone. He chartered a **55-passenger motor coach** and a **15-passenger van**, then added a second van on January 1 when the first two sold out. Departure around six in the morning from West Main Street in Bloomsburg, with pickups in Harrisburg and York and parking reserved in advance in Washington. Tickets were free if you drove yourself and twenty-five dollars for a seat on the bus. **[FACT — archived Eventbrite listing and Trumparoo posts]** **He coordinated transportation for several dozen people.** And he drove one of the vans himself, trailing the bus the whole way. **[FACT]** The group got to Washington around 10:30 in the morning. He broke off from them to go park the van. **That was the last time any of his passengers saw him alive.** **[FACT]** His fellow travelers waited at the bus for the six o''clock departure and he never came. They called around. D.C. police called them back to tell them he was dead. **[FACT]** Those people had to ride a chartered bus four hours back to Pennsylvania in the dark, in seats he had booked for them, knowing the man who organized the trip was in a morgue in Washington. ## HOW HE ACTUALLY DIED His family''s obituary says he collapsed **shortly after arriving at the U.S. Capitol grounds, at 1 p.m.** **[FACT — family obituary]** More precisely: he went down on the **northwest sidewalk at the north end of the Capitol''s west front, behind the large inauguration scaffolding complex — away from the main crowd.** Capitol Police CCTV appears to show a person fall at that location at **12:59:17 p.m.** The first police radio call for an AED came at **1:04 p.m.** Bystanders and officers carried him roughly a hundred yards on a flattened section of bike rack to a rescue squad and handed him to paramedics at **1:19 p.m.** **[DOCUMENTED — CCTV and radio audio as reported by The Epoch Times, a partisan outlet; the underlying footage is not independently public, so this is attributed rather than asserted]** He was pronounced dead at **George Washington University Hospital.** **[FACT]** On April 7, 2021, the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause **hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease**, manner **natural** — the identical ruling issued for Kevin Greeson. **[FACT]** **One correction that matters: it was not a stroke.** You will read "stroke" in hundreds of articles, including good ones. That word came from **D.C. police relaying information to his fellow travelers on January 6**, and it propagated everywhere from there. The medical examiner''s ruling is **cardiovascular, not cerebrovascular.** Heart, not brain. **[FACT — the police-day relay was superseded by the OCME ruling]** ## THE STRAIGHT ANSWER ON USE OF FORCE **No police use of force was involved in Benjamin Philips''s death.** And on this one, the record cuts against a claim made by people who think of themselves as on his side. Activists have carried signs at January 6 commemorations asserting that Philips was **murdered by Capitol Police**, and a popular account holds that he was struck by an explosive police munition on the west plaza. **The timeline does not allow it.** - He collapsed at approximately **12:59 p.m.** **[DOCUMENTED — CCTV timestamp]** - The **first police munitions on the west front came at roughly 1:10 p.m.**, at the **south** end. **[DOCUMENTED]** - **None were deployed on the north side of the plaza until 1:21 p.m.** — by which time he was **already in a D.C. Fire and EMS ambulance.** **[DOCUMENTED]** - He was **not near the main crowd** at all. He was behind the scaffolding. **[DOCUMENTED]** He collapsed **eleven minutes before the first munition anywhere on that side of the building**, and **twenty-two minutes before the first one near where he fell.** And the medical examiner ruled the manner **natural**, a category the office defines as excluding any death hastened by injury. **[FACT]** This archive says release the tape, show me the evidence, and the record does not lie. That rule does not get suspended when the record is inconvenient. **Benjamin Philips was not killed by police. He had a heart attack.** The other shorthand fails him too. He is often counted among the deaths of "the riot." **The violence at the Capitol began after he had already collapsed.** His obituary and the Inquirer both state he took no part in any violence, and the clock proves he could not have. **[FACT]** He was a man with heart disease who had been under a lot of strain, who drove a van full of strangers three hours to a rally and died on a sidewalk before anything happened. ## WHAT HIS FAMILY ASKED FOR His arrangements were handled by **Stauffer-Breznik Funeral Home** in Ringtown, Pennsylvania. His obituary was published in the Republican and Herald on May 6, 2021 — **four months after he died.** **[FACT]** It says: **There are no services planned at this time.** **[FACT]** Four months of silence, and then no service. That is what it looks like when a family is trying to grieve somebody whose death became a national argument. And here is the one thing they asked people to do in his memory. **Donations to the Hillside Animal Shelter of Pottsville.** **[FACT]** Not a legal fund. Not a political organization. Not a cause. An animal shelter in Schuylkill County. If you want to honor Benjamin Philips, that is the instruction his own family left, and it is still good. **[Note: this archive gets nothing from that. Give directly.]** ## WHAT THIS PROVES - Benjamin **Philips** — one L — was **fifty years old**, a **Temple University computer science graduate** and freelance programmer of twenty-five years. - He had moved home to Bloomsburg **to help care for his mother, who has Alzheimer''s.** - He was a **father of two daughters** and an **only child.** - He organized bus and van transportation for **several dozen people** and **drove a van himself.** - He collapsed at about **12:59 p.m.**, **behind the inauguration scaffolding, away from the crowd.** - **He never entered the Capitol. He was never charged with anything.** - Cause: **hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.** Manner: **natural.** - **It was not a stroke** — that came from a police relay on the day and was superseded. - **No police use of force was involved**, and the munitions timeline forecloses the claim that there was. - His family asked for donations to an **animal shelter.** ## WHAT WE STILL NEED Written permission from **Taylor and Morgan Philips**, or from Stauffer-Breznik Funeral Home, for the portrait on this page. It is the photograph his family chose for his obituary, which is why it is the only one this archive would use — but it is theirs, not ours. And if his daughters ever want to write something here about their father, this page will carry it word for word. ## THE RECORD | | | | --- | --- | | Full name | Benjamin J. Philips (**not** Phillips) | | Age at death | 50 | | Born | Pottsville, PA, 1970; raised in Middleport | | School | Saint Clair High School, 1988; B.S. Computer Science, Temple University | | Home | Ringtown area and Bloomsburg, PA — after 25 years in Philadelphia | | Why he moved home | To help care for his mother, who has Alzheimer''s | | Occupation | Freelance computer programmer, web developer, consultant; toy inventor | | Family | Daughters Taylor and Morgan Philips; parents James and Victoria Philips; only child; longtime companion Sandra Demarkis | | Charges | **None. Never charged with anything.** | | Entered the Capitol | **No** | | Collapsed | Approx. 12:59 p.m., northwest sidewalk behind inauguration scaffolding | | Handed to paramedics | 1:19 p.m. | | Died | George Washington University Hospital, January 6, 2021 | | Cause of death | Hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease | | Manner of death | **Natural** — D.C. OCME, announced April 7, 2021 | | Police use of force | **None** — he collapsed 11 minutes before the first munition on that side of the building | | Common error | Reported as a "stroke" — superseded by the OCME ruling | | Family request | Donations to Hillside Animal Shelter, Pottsville, PA | --- He was a programmer who built a plush kangaroo and a website. He moved home at fifty to help his mother through Alzheimer''s. He booked a bus so a few dozen people from Pennsylvania could go stand up for something they believed in, and he drove the van himself. He died on a sidewalk behind some scaffolding before a single thing happened, and the world spent five years spelling his name wrong and arguing about him. His family asked for donations to an animal shelter. Say his name. Benjamin Philips. *This is not gossip. This is the record.* This profile is unclaimed. If this is you — or your family — claiming it is free, forever.