Ashli Babbitt. (images via Twitter)
The husband and the estate of slain Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt sued the U.S. government on Friday, arguing that a Capitol police officer killed her in an unjustified shooting. She was unarmed.
“Ashli traveled alone from San Diego to Washington, D.C. on January 5, 2021, to attend the Women for America First (aka Save America) rally the next morning at the Ellipse, located just south of the White House,” the complaint filed in the Southern District of California. “The rally featured President Trump and prominent conservative speakers. Ashli loved her country and wanted to show her support for President Trump’s America First policies and to see and hear the president speak live while he remained in office. Ashli did not go to Washington as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose. She was there to exercise what she believed were her God-given, American liberties and freedoms.”
Babbitt and other supporters of then-President Donald Trump raided the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump continued to lie that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, saying that it was being stolen from him.
She and others forced their way to a hallway outside the “Speaker’s Lobby,” leading to the House of Representatives chamber as Congress was certifying the 2020 election results. As seen on video, members of the crowd smashed away at the barricaded doors.
“He’s got a gun!” said a man in the footage below.
Babbitt began to climb through a smashed out glass panel. A Capitol officer opened fire. She fell backward, fatally struck.
Please note that the footage below is disturbing.
Trump faces an ongoing federal criminal case for trying to subvert the election.
The officer who killed Babbitt stepped forward as Lt. Michael Byrd. Speaking to “NBC Nightly News” in 2021, Byrd articulated why he believed an imminent threat was immediately present: other officers were reportedly injured; he ordered lawmakers to evacuate; and he was confronted by a mob which allegedly refused commands to back down.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Capitol Police announced that Byrd was cleared of criminal and internal wrongdoing.
“The investigation further determined that Ms. Babbitt was among a mob of people that entered the Capitol building and gained access to a hallway outside ‘Speaker’s Lobby,’ which leads to the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives,” federal prosecutors wrote. “At the time, the USCP was evacuating Members from the Chamber, which the mob was trying to enter from multiple doorways. USCP officers used furniture to barricade a set of glass doors separating the hallway and Speaker’s Lobby to try and stop the mob from entering the Speaker’s Lobby and the Chamber, and three officers positioned themselves between the doors and the mob. Members of the mob attempted to break through the doors by striking them and breaking the glass with their hands, flagpoles, helmets, and other objects. Eventually, the three USCP officers positioned outside the doors were forced to evacuate. As members of the mob continued to strike the glass doors, Ms. Babbitt attempted to climb through one of the doors where glass was broken out. An officer inside the Speaker’s Lobby fired one round from his service pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, causing her to fall back from the doorway and onto the floor.”
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