A suit filed recently by Judicial Watch on behalf of Ashli Babbitt’s widower, Aaron Babbitt, shows just how perverse is the state of justice in the age of Obama-Biden.
On Jan. 6, 2021, the 5-foot-2 Ashli found herself trapped by a crowd in the narrow corridor leading to the Speaker’s Lobby of the U.S. Capitol.
In that crowd was Zachary Alam, a 30-year-old with a criminal past. He reached between the three Capitol Police officers guarding the doors to the lobby and began smashing the glass, shouting a very un-MAGA like, “F–k the Blue.”
Appalled by Alam’s behavior, Ashli’s military police training kicked in. “Call f—ing help!” she shouted at the feckless officers as they they stood in place with their backs to the doors, doing nothing.
Frustrated by the police inaction, Ashli took matters into her own hands, literally. A southpaw, she yanked at Alam’s backpack with her right hand. As he spun around, she slugged him square in the face with her left fist.
Alam’s glasses flew off on impact. Fleeing the madness, Ashli hopped into the window pane now fully free of glass. Only a person as small as she could have managed that feat.
Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, the incident commander for the House on Jan. 6, promptly shot her, the least justifiable police shooting ever caught on video.
Byrd had all the time he needed to assess the scene. He knew that the doors were heavily barricaded and that other armed officers hovered nearby in the Speaker’s Lobby.
According to Aaron Babbit’s suit, “The bullet pierced Ashli in her left anterior shoulder, perforated her left brachial plexus, trachea, upper lobe of the right lung and second anterior rib, and landed in her right anterior shoulder.”
When shot, Ashli instantly fell backward on to the marble floor. She was still alive after the fall and in obvious agony. When California physician Austin Harris tried to treat Ashli, the police pulled him off.
The FBI would later arrest Harris on the same cocked-up charges they did most other protesters. A half-hour after the shooting, Ashli was pronounced dead at Washington Hospital Center.
As Ashli lay dying, Byrd wasted no time trying to establish his alibi. Within one minute of shooting Ashli, Byrd made an astonishing radio call:
“405B. We got shots fired in the lobby. We got shots shots fired in the lobby of the House chamber. Shots are being fired at us and we’re sh, uhh, prepared to fire back at them. We have guns drawn. Please don’t leave that end. Don’t leave that end ”
Less than a minute later, Byrd made a follow-up call: “405B. We got an injured person. I believe that person was shot.” Believe? Unaware the shooting had been recorded, Byrd reflexively created his own reality.
The House Select Committee report did not mention Byrd by name, let alone question the shooting. To the degree that the report mentioned Ashli it was to build the specious case that President Trump was indifferent to her death.
As the Babbitt suit makes clear, Byrd violated just about every USCP directive on the use of deadly force. Masked and out of uniform, Byrd did not identify himself as a police officer, did not give Ashli verbal orders to stop, nor give her a chance to comply.
Byrd did not “diligently assess” the situation before firing. He never considered any other defensive tactics or compliance techniques. He disregarded the presence of seven other police officers in his line of fire.
Most critically, Ashli did not pose “an imminent danger of death or serious injury.” When Byrd fired, he did not even know she was a female.
For nearly nine months after the shooting, the media showed no interest in Byrd’s identity. It was not until Aug. 28, 2021, that the Capitol Police publicly identified Byrd by name.
NBC orchestrated Byrd’s official coming-out with a softer than softball interview. The conversation began with Lester Holt asking Byrd why the Capitol Police withheld his name as long as it did. Byrd responded, “Threats.”
To further insulate Byrd, Holt followed his initial question with the inevitable, “Racist threats?” Holt wanted the NBC audience to believe that Trump supporters were making racist threats long before internet sleuths even deduced his identity.
In the way of contrast, the Minneapolis PD made no effort to protect Derek Chauvin and his colleagues. They were named the day after George Floyd died. Chauvin was arrested three days later.
In the summer of 2020, Chauvin was not the exception. The media competed to dox police officers, especially white ones, involved in any controversial police action.
As Holt repeated twice, the USCP, the Metropolitan PD and the Justice Department had all cleared Byrd of any wrongdoing. What they could not clear him of, especially after his one-time appearance on NBC, was lying.
Byrd lied about things big and small, even things he didn’t have to lie about. Most grandiose was his claim, “I know that day I saved countless lives.”
In truth, the bullet that killed Ashli Babbitt was the only bullet fired that day in or around the Capitol. Among those Byrd claimed to have saved were members of Congress who were “disabled” or very nearly so.
“Some of those individuals were in the lobby with me,” said Byrd. In fact, there were no members of Congress in the lobby, let alone disabled ones.
To show their indifference to the truth, and their disdain for the MAGA movement, the regime had Byrd promoted to captain two years after the interview.
Meanwhile, speaking of threats, Derek Chauvin struggles to recover from those 22 knife wounds he endured in an Arizona prison.
Where’s Lester Holt when we need him?
Note: Jack Cashill is working on a new book, “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6.”
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