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Rosanne Boyland

Memorial — died January 6, 2021, Lower West Terrace tunnel · January 6 Capitol crowd

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**IN MEMORIAM — ROSANNE MARIE BOYLAND — 1986 to January 6, 2021** Rosanne Boyland was thirty-four years old. She was seven years sober. She had just voted in her first presidential election, and she was still wearing the "I Voted" sticker on her jacket when she died. She promised her sister she would stay on the sidelines. She kept that promise. She never assaulted anybody. She never broke anything. She never went inside. She was crushed at the mouth of a tunnel by a crowd that had nowhere to go, and then she was struck with a stick while she lay unconscious on the ground. Rosanne Boyland of Kennesaw, Georgia is one of the reasons this archive exists. --- ## WHO SHE WAS Rosanne Marie Boyland was born and raised in Georgia, in Cobb County. Her parents are Bret and Cheryl Boyland. Her sister is Lonna Cave. **[FACT]** She and her father were best friends as much as family. They fished. They camped. They dug for crystals. They spent countless hours outdoors together. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** She loved RV road trips with her parents to quirky roadside attractions. One of the last trips she took, she picked the destination herself: Roswell, New Mexico. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** She loved to cook. Her father''s homemade spaghetti with his special sauce was the thing. She worked at recreating recipes from a local place called The Italian Kitchen. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** Her sister Lonna described her as a beautiful person with a heart of gold who would give the shirt off her back for anyone. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** That is the woman. Before anything else, that is the woman. ## SEVEN YEARS SOBER Rosanne Boyland beat addiction. Her family and her sister have both stated publicly that she had **seven years of sobriety** at the time of her death. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** If you have never watched somebody claw their way out of that, you do not know what seven years costs. It is seven years of choosing, every single day, when nobody is clapping. She turned it into service. Her family says that as a drug counselor she offered empathy, encouragement, and hope, and that she believed strongly in redemption and second chances. **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** We will be precise here, because precision is how you protect a person''s name. Contemporaneous CBS News reporting described her slightly differently — as a recovering addict who **wanted to become** a sobriety counselor, and who attended meetings of an addiction group in Atlanta. **[FACT — as reported]** Counselor, or on her way to becoming one. Either way it is the same point: a woman who got clean spent her recovery pointed at people who were still in it. A friend put it plainly — she got clean and sober, stopped blaming other people for her problems, and got real conservative. **[FACT — as reported]** She believed in second chances because she had needed one. ## JANUARY 6 She traveled to Washington with her friend Justin Winchell. **[FACT]** Before she left, she made her sister a promise: **no violence. She would just stand on the sidelines.** **[HER FAMILY''S ACCOUNT]** Hold onto that, because the record shows she kept it. In more than five years, nobody has produced a single frame of Rosanne Boyland assaulting anyone, breaking anything, or entering the building. There is no such footage, because there was no such conduct. **She was never charged with anything.** **[FACT]** She was there. She was in the crowd. That is the entirety of it. ## WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TUNNEL This is the part people get wrong, including people who mean well. So here it is carefully. **Rosanne Boyland was not beaten to death. She was crushed.** She was at the mouth of the Lower West Terrace tunnel on the Capitol''s west front. Police deployed chemical agents into a confined hallway packed shoulder to shoulder with human beings. The crowd tried to get out. There was nowhere to go. She went down, and a pile of people came down on top of her. **[FACT — visible on video]** Witnesses say she lost consciousness under the pile and stopped breathing. Fellow demonstrators dragged her out and started CPR on the stones. **[FACT]** Her friend Justin Winchell is on the audio, screaming: > *She''s gonna die! She''s gonna die! I need somebody! She''s dead!* **[FACT — audio record]** A Tennessee sheriff''s deputy who was in that crowd, Ronald Colton McAbee — himself later a January 6 defendant — is heard yelling at officers to quit trying to kill that girl. **[FACT — as reported]** Another man in that crowd, Luke Coffee, is seen on video raising a crutch between an officer and Rosanne''s body. **[DOCUMENTED — visible on video]** Read that twice. Ordinary people in that tunnel — people the government later prosecuted — are the people who pulled Rosanne Boyland out and tried to save her life. **Now the stick.** While she lay motionless on the ground, MPD Officer Lila Morris picked up a large wooden stick, raised it overhead, and struck her several times in quick succession, before other officers pulled her back. It is on body-worn camera from more than one angle. **[FACT — visible on multiple BWC angles]** Advocacy timelines place those strikes at **4:27:53 p.m.** **[DOCUMENTED INFERENCE — timestamp per a November 2025 criminal referral, not an official finding]** Rosanne Boyland was already unconscious when she was hit. Nobody disputes that — it is in fact the core of the police department''s own defense. ## THE RULING, AND WHY HER FAMILY DOES NOT ACCEPT IT On April 7, 2021, the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner announced that Rosanne Boyland died of an **amphetamine overdose**, manner **accidental** — commonly rendered as acute amphetamine intoxication. **[FACT — this is what the government ruled]** Here is what almost nobody reports alongside it. **The amphetamine was her prescription.** Rosanne Boyland had been taking prescribed Adderall for roughly ten years for ADHD. Her father Bret has said so publicly, and it is corroborated in mainstream reporting. **[FACT]** So the government''s position is that a woman who had taken her own prescribed ADHD medication for a decade happened to fatally overdose on it — at 4:20 in the afternoon, on the ground, at the bottom of a human pile, in a hallway filling with chemical agents, on the one day of her life she was at the United States Capitol. Her family did not just complain. They went and got doctors. - A **family-retained independent forensic pathologist** concluded she most likely died of **compressional asphyxia** — crushing. **[FAMILY-RETAINED EXPERT OPINION]** - The campaign for her states that **three independent pathologists** who reviewed the records found the findings **inconsistent with a fatal overdose** and concluded the death should have been ruled **asphyxiation**. **[ADVOCATE — expert opinions obtained by her family''s campaign, not official findings]** And they identified specific gaps in the government''s own autopsy. **[ADVOCATE — technical criticism]** - Lung fluid was **not tested** for CS gas or OC spray. - There was **no analysis for neck injury.** - Bruising and damage visible on her face and forehead in later-emerged photographs were **not noted.** Sit with the first one. A woman collapses in a hallway that police have just filled with chemical irritants, and nobody tests her lungs for the chemical. A court-certified crowd-control expert with about forty years across six agencies, **Stanley Kephart**, reviewed the video of the strikes: > *I cannot recall a more egregious abuse of authority than the actions of Officer Lila Morris against the lifeless body of Rosanne Boyland... This was not a failure of training — it was gratuitous violence born of anger and frustration.* **[EXPERT OPINION — retained by her family''s campaign]** ## THE ACCOUNTABILITY THAT NEVER CAME The Metropolitan Police Department''s Bureau of Internal Affairs reviewed the strikes and concluded that because Boyland was **already unconscious** when she was hit, the **use of force was objectively reasonable.** **[FACT — MPD''s stated conclusion]** That language came from Capt. David Augustine, Director of the Risk Management Division of MPD''s Internal Affairs Bureau, in correspondence with a private citizen from Texas who had filed a brutality complaint. Augustine also confirmed Officer Morris remained employed with MPD and faced no criminal charges over the use of force on January 6. **[FACT — reported February 10, 2022]** Read the logic again, slowly. **She was unconscious, therefore hitting her was reasonable.** And notice how that finding reached the public. Not in a published report. Not at a press conference. In a **letter to a complainant**. MPD has published no report on the death of Rosanne Boyland. **[FACT]** There has been **no prosecution.** There has been **no publicly reported independent external review.** **[FACT]** Officer Morris was celebrated after January 6 and traveled to the Super Bowl in Tampa in February 2021 as a guest of honor. **[FACT — as reported]** On **November 12, 2025**, a formal criminal referral concerning her death was submitted to the President, the Attorney General, and the FBI Director, alleging federal civil-rights and homicide violations and requesting a congressional investigation, release of all MPD and USCP body-worn camera and CCTV from the 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. window, and forensic re-examination of the autopsy. **[FACT that a referral was made — a referral is a request, not a finding]** As of now, no subcommittee hearing has been held on Rosanne Boyland''s death, and no official body has revisited the ruling. **[FACT]** ## RELEASE THE 4:00 TO 5:00 P.M. FOOTAGE Everything in this case turns on about twenty minutes of video. Camera **0074 — USCH BA Lower West Terrace Door Exterior** — is the Capitol CCTV camera covering the doorway where Rosanne Boyland went down. Clips from that camera, timestamped to the second, exist in January 6 discovery productions. **[FACT — Ryan Nichols holds Camera 0074 clips in his own case discovery, produced by the government and marked Highly Sensitive]** So we do not need to argue. We need the tape. Release Camera 0074 in full. Release every MPD and USCP body-worn camera in that tunnel from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Release the dispatch traffic. Release the chemical-agent deployment log. Release the unredacted autopsy. If the government is right that a prescribed ADHD medication killed her, the footage will show it. If her family and their pathologists are right that she was crushed, the footage will show that instead. Either way — **release it.** The tape is the tape. The bodycam does not need a press secretary. ## HER SISTER One thing this page will not do is put words in the mouth of a grieving family. Rosanne''s sister **Lonna Cave** has been public since the beginning, and she has her own hard-won view of what happened. She has said she believes her sister was radicalized, and she has assigned blame in directions many people in the January 6 community would not. That is her right. She lost her sister. She does not owe anybody a narrative, including us. On the medical examiner''s ruling, this is what Lonna Cave said: > *The fact that they didn''t even acknowledge she was at some crazy event with pepper spray and thousands of people compressed in area, it''s hurtful.* **[HER ACCOUNT]** > *It''s just been awful. I went on a huge journey, trying to figure out what happened.* **[HER ACCOUNT]** A family can disagree about the politics of January 6 and still be completely united on this: the ruling did not account for the pepper spray, and it did not account for thousands of people compressed into a space with no way out. That is not a partisan observation. That is a sister who read a cause of death that never mentioned the tunnel her sister died in. ## WHAT THIS PROVES - Rosanne Boyland was **thirty-four**, **seven years sober**, voting in her **first presidential election.** - She **promised no violence**, and she was **never charged with anything.** - She was **crushed under a pile of people** in a confined tunnel while police deployed chemical agents. That is on video. - She was **struck several times with a stick while unconscious** by a named MPD officer. That is on body-worn camera from multiple angles. - The government ruled **accidental amphetamine intoxication** — from her **own prescribed ADHD medication of about ten years.** - **Family-retained pathologists concluded compressional asphyxia.** - MPD ruled the force **objectively reasonable because she was already unconscious**, in a **letter to a complainant**, with **no published report.** - **No prosecution. No independent review.** ## WHAT THIS DOES NOT PROVE It does not prove a criminal conviction, because nobody was ever charged. The medical examiner''s ruling has not been officially overturned, and the competing pathology opinions were retained by her family''s campaign — they are expert opinions, not government findings. The November 2025 criminal referral is a request for investigation, not an outcome. This page does not need to overstate one thing. The undisputed facts are damning enough: a woman with no violent conduct and no charges was crushed in a tunnel, struck with a stick while unconscious, and the department that struck her closed the matter by letter. ## WHAT WE STILL NEED - **Camera 0074 released in full**, plus all tunnel body-worn camera from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. - **The complete unredacted autopsy**, publicly available. - **A hearing.** One hearing. Under oath. - **Written permission from Bret and Cheryl Boyland or Lonna Cave** for the family photograph on this page. It currently comes from her family''s public campaign page, and this archive wants it here with the family''s blessing, not just their pictures. If you are family — this page is yours to correct, expand, or take down. Say the word. ## THE RECORD | | | | --- | --- | | Full name | Rosanne Marie Boyland | | Age at death | 34 | | Home | Kennesaw, Georgia (Cobb County) | | Family | Parents Bret and Cheryl Boyland; sister Lonna Cave | | Sobriety | Seven years | | Vocation | Addiction recovery counseling | | Charges | **None. Never charged with anything.** | | Conduct on Jan 6 | No documented assault, no property damage, did not enter the Capitol | | Died | January 6, 2021 — Lower West Terrace tunnel mouth, U.S. Capitol | | Pronounced | Approximately 6:09 p.m., George Washington University Hospital | | Official cause | Acute amphetamine intoxication — accidental (D.C. OCME, announced April 7, 2021) | | The amphetamine | Prescribed Adderall, about ten years for ADHD | | Family experts | Compressional asphyxia | | Officer who struck her | MPD Officer Lila Morris | | MPD Internal Affairs | Force "objectively reasonable" — she was already unconscious | | Prosecution | None | | Independent review | None | | Key evidence | Capitol CCTV Camera 0074, Lower West Terrace Door Exterior, 4:00–5:00 p.m. | --- She was seven years sober. She was wearing her "I Voted" sticker. She promised her sister she would stay on the sidelines, and she did. She died on the stones of the West Terrace with strangers doing chest compressions on her, and the government wrote it down as an overdose of her own prescription. Not gossip. Not drama. Not a rumor. **The record.** Say her name. Rosanne Boyland. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you — or your family — claiming it is free, forever.

The case file

On the record

Disposition
Died January 6, 2021. Never charged with any offense. D.C. OCME ruled accidental acute amphetamine intoxication (announced April 7, 2021). Family-retained forensic pathologists concluded compressional asphyxia. MPD Internal Affairs found the force used on her objectively reasonable because she was already unconscious. No prosecution, no independent external review.

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Connection to United States v. Nichols

Rosanne Boyland appears in the record of United States v. Nichols through 9 shared documents on file below. The full case — timeline, people, documents — is public and free.

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Evidence on file

9 documents on file

Ryan8 documents in 6 items

Ryan Nichols' own paperwork — grievances, motions, letters, cell notes.

Handwritten case strategy notes — Misc, Guards, Solitary, Media (items 7-11)

other · Jan 15, 2022

Handwritten case strategy notes — Misc, Guards, Solitary, Media (items 7-11)

Handwritten lined notebook page with numbered list items 7-11 covering case strategy: Final Call, Informants motion, Media motion, Mike Pence, PTSD triggers (Boyland/Whito et al.), Guards (need names/badge numbers/descriptions/background), Solitary lockdowns in pod/SHU/elsewhere, Media infiltration (NPR, Randy Ireland, Feds), Camera situation including body cams.

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News1 document

Press coverage.

Official recordserved from the court docket

audio · Aug 16, 2023

Political Prisoner Podcast Episode 8 — Peter Stager and Daniel Christmann

Apple Podcasts lists this 1-hour, 4-minute episode as published August 16, 2023 and identifies Peter Francis Stager and Daniel Christmann as guests on Jake Lang’s Political Prisoner Podcast. The publisher description says Stager discussed Rosanne Boyland’s death and Christmann discussed his civil lawsuit. These are attributed descriptions of firsthand interview topics, not independently verified findings. Native audio, a complete transcript, exact quotations, and claim-level corroboration remain pending.

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