Person of record

Kevin Greeson

Memorial — Goodyear union man, died January 6, 2021

**IN MEMORIAM — KEVIN GREESON — 1965 to January 6, 2021** Kevin Greeson was fifty-five years old. He was a father of five. He put twenty-one years into a Goodyear tire plant in Decatur, Alabama, the same plant his daddy worked in before him, and he rose from the factory floor to vice president of his union local. He died on a sidewalk outside the United States Capitol at 2:05 in the afternoon, on the phone with his wife, of a heart attack. **He never went inside the building. He was pronounced dead before anyone breached it. He was never charged with anything.** And then the internet told a lie about him that is still being repeated five years later. This page is here to put Kevin Greeson''s name back where it belongs. --- ## THE UNION MAN Kevin Greeson of Athens, Alabama — Limestone County — worked **twenty-one years at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Decatur.** His father worked there before him. **[FACT]** He started on the factory floor. He became a leader and then a **vice president of Local 88T of the United Food and Commercial Workers.** He left the plant in 2006. **[FACT]** Understand what that means about the man. Twenty-one years of shift work in a tire plant is a hard living. And his coworkers elected him to speak for them. You do not get handed a union vice presidency. Men who work beside you decide you are the one they trust to go into the room and argue for their wages. **Kevin Greeson was a lifelong Democrat and an Obama supporter.** His family attorney put it plainly: "He was a vice president at the union, and he was an Obama supporter." **[FACT]** He attended Barack Obama''s 2009 inauguration. **[FACT]** Twelve years later he went to Washington again, for a different president. Whatever anyone thinks about that road, it is an American road, and a lot of working men in this country walked it in those twelve years. ## WHO HIS FAMILY SAID HE WAS His family released a statement on January 7, 2021, the day after he died. This is their words, not ours: > *Kevin was a wonderful father and husband who loved life. He loved to ride motorcycles, he loved his job and his coworkers, and he loved his dogs. Kevin was an advocate of President Trump and attended the event on January 6, 2021 to show his support. He was excited to be there to experience this event — he was not there to participate in violence or rioting, nor did he condone such actions. Kevin had a history of high blood pressure, and in the midst of the excitement, suffered a heart attack. Our family is devastated.* **[HIS FAMILY''S STATEMENT]** Motorcycles. His coworkers. His dogs. His wife **Kristi Greeson** told the New York Times she had not wanted him to go: > *He felt like it was a monumental event in his mind... I didn''t want him to go. I didn''t feel like it was safe.* **[HER ACCOUNT]** Through the family attorney, she described the moment she lost him: > *He was talking to her on the phone and he quit talking. She was upset because she thought he had hung up on her.* **[HER ACCOUNT, via family attorney Mark McDaniel]** She thought he hung up on her. She was on the phone with her husband when his heart stopped, and for a few seconds she was annoyed at him. There is no way to read that sentence without it taking something out of you. ## HOW HE ACTUALLY DIED The facts here are not in dispute, and they are simple. Kevin Greeson **collapsed outdoors, on the sidewalk, on the west side of the Capitol, while on his cellphone with his wife.** **[FACT]** A **New York Times reporter watched it happen** and watched emergency personnel run to him and perform chest compressions. They could not revive him. **[FACT — direct eyewitness journalism]** The MPD incident report records that he was in the area of the United States Capitol in attendance of First Amendment activities when he suffered a heart attack. **[FACT — MPD incident report]** **He was declared dead at 2:05 p.m. on January 6, 2021.** **[FACT]** Now hold that time against the timeline of the day. **The first rioters broke into the Capitol building at approximately 2:12 p.m.** Kevin Greeson was already gone. He was pronounced dead **before the breach.** He never entered the Capitol. His wife confirmed it, and the clock confirms it. **[FACT]** On April 7, 2021, the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death **hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease**, manner **natural.** **[FACT]** ## THE STRAIGHT ANSWER ON USE OF FORCE This archive does not shade things, so here is the straight answer. **No police use of force was involved in Kevin Greeson''s death.** Three reasons, and each one stands on its own: 1. **The medical examiner ruled it natural.** And the OCME defines that word precisely: natural is "when a disease alone causes death. **If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.**" By ruling natural, the government affirmatively found his death was **not hastened by injury.** No chemical irritant, no munition, no baton, no taser appears anywhere in the cause of death. **[FACT]** 2. **His own family never claimed police force.** Not once. Their statement attributes his death to high blood pressure in the midst of the excitement. Neither Kristi Greeson nor the family attorney ever said police caused it. **[FACT]** 3. **The clock forecloses it.** He was pronounced at 2:05 p.m., before the breach. **[FACT]** Some outlets and activists have framed his collapse as following tear gas and flashbangs and attacked the natural-causes ruling. **[DISPUTED — advocacy assertion]** This page will not carry that claim, for a simple reason: **his widow never made it, and the timeline does not support it.** We demand the tape on this website. That means we live by it when it does not say what our side wants it to say. Kevin Greeson had a heart attack. That is the truth, and the truth is enough. ## THE LIE THEY TOLD ABOUT HIM Here is why this page exists. Within days of his death, a story went viral claiming Kevin Greeson **died after accidentally tasing himself** inside the Capitol while trying to steal a portrait of former House Speaker Tip O''Neill. **It was completely false. It was built on a fabricated family statement — a document his family never wrote.** **[FACT — documented hoax, corrected by Lead Stories January 9, 2021 and by Snopes]** Kristi Greeson stated on the record that her husband **had no gun, had no taser to her knowledge, carried only a flagpole, and never entered the building.** **[HER ACCOUNT]** So think about what happened to this family. A woman is on the phone with her husband of many years. He stops talking. He dies on a sidewalk in a city eight hundred miles from home. And within seventy-two hours, millions of strangers are laughing about how he electrocuted himself stealing a painting — a thing that never happened, invented out of nothing, spread on a forged statement with her family''s name on it. They buried him privately. They asked for privacy. There is no public obituary, no memorial fund, no service details in the record. **[FACT]** They just wanted to be left alone with it. Five years later the taser joke still circulates and the union vice president does not. **Kevin Greeson did not tase himself. Kevin Greeson never went inside. Kevin Greeson had a heart attack on a sidewalk while talking to his wife.** That is the record. Correct it when you see it. ## THE HARDER PART OF THE RECORD This archive does not sanitize, and it does not pretend men are simpler than they are. ProPublica reported on Parler posts attributed to Kevin Greeson in late 2020, and they were angry ones — including a December 17, 2020 post reading "Let''s take this f---ing Country BACK!! Load your guns and take to the streets!" ProPublica also reported that he expressed support for the Proud Boys and posted vile things about Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. **[FACT — as reported]** We publish that because leaving it out would make this page a brochure instead of a record, and because somebody would find it and use it to call this whole archive dishonest. Two things are also true, and they belong in the same breath. **He was never charged with any crime.** No police agency alleged he committed an offense or carried an illegal weapon in Washington, D.C. **[FACT]** And **no source establishes he was a member of the Proud Boys or any group.** He expressed support on a social media app. Some aggregator pages label him a "Proud Boys activist." That is not supported by any sourcing. **[NEEDS AUTHENTICATION — and this archive rejects it as unproven]** A man can post furious things on the internet at fifty-five years old, after a year of lockdowns and a lost election, and still be a father of five who loved his dogs, and still deserve to not have a lie told about how he died. Those facts live together. Most real people are like that. ## WHAT THIS PROVES - Kevin Greeson worked **twenty-one years at Goodyear** and served as **vice president of UFCW Local 88T.** - He was a **lifelong Democrat** who attended **Obama''s 2009 inauguration.** - He was a **father of five** who loved motorcycles, his coworkers, and his dogs. - He **collapsed on a public sidewalk** while on the phone with his wife and was **pronounced dead at 2:05 p.m. — before the Capitol was breached.** - **He never entered the building. He was never charged with anything.** - The cause was **hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.** Manner: **natural.** - **No police use of force was involved.** - The **taser story is a documented hoax** built on a **forged family statement.** ## WHAT WE STILL NEED A photograph of Kevin Greeson that his family chooses and releases. There is no dignified, properly sourced image of him in the public record — the one that circulates has no license and was almost certainly taken from social media without permission, so this archive will not use it. Kristi — if you ever want a photograph of your husband on a page that tells the truth about how he died, this one is yours. No cost, no conditions, and you can take it down whenever you want. ## THE RECORD | | | | --- | --- | | Full name | Kevin Greeson | | Age at death | 55 | | Home | Athens, Limestone County, Alabama | | Family | Wife Kristi Greeson; father of five | | Career | Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Decatur, AL — 21 years | | Union | Vice President, UFCW Local 88T | | Politics | Lifelong Democrat, attended Obama''s 2009 inauguration; later a Trump supporter | | Charges | **None. Never charged with anything.** | | Entered the Capitol | **No** | | Died | January 6, 2021 — pronounced 2:05 p.m., sidewalk, west side of the U.S. Capitol | | Cause of death | Hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease | | Manner of death | **Natural** — D.C. OCME, announced April 7, 2021 | | Police use of force | **None** | | Known false claim | Died tasing himself inside the Capitol — **HOAX**, built on a fabricated family statement | --- Twenty-one years in a tire plant. Elected by the men he worked beside. Five kids. A motorcycle. Some dogs. He died of a bad heart on a sidewalk, mid-sentence, talking to his wife. He deserved better than a punchline. Say his name. Kevin Greeson. *This is not gossip. This is the record.* This profile is unclaimed. If this is you — or your family — claiming it is free, forever.