Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Ashli Babbitt and Broken Windows
Ashli Babbitt is, as far as we know, the only person to die as a direct consequence of a deliberate act of violence during the riot of January 6 in Washington D.C. She’s the young woman who was shot by an unnamed Capitol employee while climbing through a window in the Capitol Building.
Ms. Babbitt was able to climb through a window because the window had been broken by rioters. Rioters broke the window in plain view of armed Capitol Police, who made no visible effort to stop them. (This can be observed in the short video made in the minutes leading up to and culminating in the shooting.)
The rioters weren’t very good at breaking windows. Some of them punched the windows repeatedly with their fists, gradually cracking the apparently reinforced glass. One used a thin stick, perhaps a broom handle, to poke and dislodge the cracked glass. It was a rather pathetic performance by a not very impressive mob — most rioters appear to me to be young and, frankly, wimpy — but, since they met no resistance from the police present on the scene, their clumsy efforts eventually paid off.
Broken windows. I don’t know why the police allowed the windows to be broken. I don’t know what those on the scene thought would happen after the mob succeeded in breaking the windows: surely a reasonable expectation would be that some would attempt to enter the room beyond the windows. What were they thinking?
What the rioters were thinking, I’m sure, is that there was no penalty for breaking windows. That’s what I thought, watching them. Perhaps they were surprised by that, as I was. But I’m sure it was a surprise for all concerned (other than for the guy with the gun hiding on the other side of the wall) when the penalty for climbing through a broken window was revealed to be a speedy execution.
Murder rates skyrocket around the country following a year of broken windows. It will be blamed on racism, rather than on what it is: bad governance by cowardly public officials.
Published in Law
In the United States? Since when should that be a reasonable expectation in this country(and should it ever?)? And for a “riot” it was remarkably violence limited…not a whole lot of burning, turning over of police cars, brick throwing, or pillaging either.
The big difference it that there exist a BUNCH of no lethal crowd control measures now that did not exist in the Eighteenth Century. In the case of Ashli Babbit climbing thru the window on a closed and locked door, pretty much just an index finger firmly placed on her forehead followed by a firm push would probably worked…
Sounds reasonable then that we should make a distinction between those that were casually walking within the velvet ropes after having been let in to the Capital building versus those who were violent. Too bad the FBI, media, and most pundits are refusing to do that and are instead calling them all rioters when in fact most of them weren’t, you know, rioting.
While I don’t have time to track down the trial transcript, I did find this (Choi was the Ramset County Attorney at the time):
As I said, I don’t have the time to look for the trial transcript nor to wade through it. Yanez’s partner said he never saw sudden movements. Furthermore, Castile volunteered that he had a firearm (indeed, he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon). Immediately after the shooting, Yanez told another officer that he didn’t know where Castile’s gun was.
Yes, every white officer who purportedly justifiably shoots a POC gets his name in the paper the next day. Why is it that the name of this shadow officer who waited in the wings so to speak, in order to step forward wordlessly and shoot, has not been released. It may be after all that he wasn’t a police officer at all.
The killing of Ashli Babbit is looking a lot like the killing of Danielson in Portland.
Vince, no, it doesn’t, for two reasons. I guess I’m back to the “first of all” thing, though in your quote above, you deleted my second reason. I’ll start with that one this time.
My second point was:
So this is my first point. Even if you’re invited in, it can become a riot. Which is one reason that I thought that Flicker’s comment was nonsense.
Another reason (my second point, this time) is that a riot is a group activity. If some of the people were not invited in, it can still be a riot, even if others were invited in. This is another reason that I thought that Flicker’s comment was nonsense.
It is possible that Flicker offered the comment as humor. If so, sorry that I missed it. It wasn’t obvious to me.
I have one more follow up about this one, Vince.
I don’t think that your description is a fair characterization of what occurred on January 6. I don’t have a good understanding of the complexity of the event, and I’m not very familiar with the layout of the Capitol. My general impression is that things were pretty calm on one side of the building, and your description is pretty fair for that side.
But then there’s the other side. Here are a couple of videos of the rioting at some of the entrances:
1. In this one, rioters break a window and storm into the Capitol.
2. In this one, rioters squash a cop in the doorway, and try to push in through the door in the face of a pretty large number of cops in riot gear.
I think that those videos show a riot.
See comment #63 above.
I think that first video is the window-breaking that has been definitively attributed to the Antifa folks in the crowd.
If you watch the video you’ll notice the police had retreated at that point.
It’s hard to say without actually being there, but a mob becomes an entity – single parts of it can’t be subdued without the rest getting involved. That’s why the three police (unarmed?) could only stand there and not touch anybody. They were outnumbered.
My point is, it was a mob. The other people there were not bystanders.
Actual Trump supporters don’t break windows, they didn’t here, they never have, and they never will. Antifa fools with $5 MAGA hats they bought on Jan 5th do though.
I’m good with the “mob” part,, but it’s speculation to say that the police did not touch anybody because they were outnumbered. It’s possible they were exercising discretion. As for whether their actions are classified as a “retreat,” I think that’s also subject to interpretation. It does not take long at all for police with weapons and swat gear to appear.
Well, also the screams of “kill them, kill them!” doesn’t sound very Trumpist. I don’t really know who those people are, though.
The barricades were moved by police, the protesters were arguably waved in, and the police held the door for the protesters. When they reached a certain point, one of their number was executed or shot, or killed, without a word of warning. This appears to have been deliberate machinations. In any other surroundings it would have been clearly interpreted as such.
You know this thinking will make it impossible to be a CC holder and get stopped for a traffic violation and survive, depending on the mindset and training and justified use of force understood by the policeman. Every movement can be, and will be, seen as a movement toward a gun. And even saying before hand, “Don’t shoot I have a concealed carry permit, but I’m not going for my gun but I’m just reaching for my wallet,” will get you shot, too.
Who screamed that? The young men outside the door didn’t look or act like Trump supporters either. They were young, apparently calm and well-trained (despite their shouted words), provocative and aggressive, and directing events, even redirecting the police away from protecting the doorway. This is one of the fallacies drawn from the video Zafar linked to. Plus they were prepared to transfer equipment one to another and change appearance quickly. And they kept shifting though the landing as if they each had specific functions. This was no protest gone awry, it was all planned. (Perhaps even to the killing of Babbit by the hiding mystery policeman.)
Jerry, I agree on both points: we do tend to agree about most things, and we very much disagree about this one. But I appreciate your detailed and thoughtful comments, even as I continue to disagree.
I’m going to stand by my interpretation of events, not finding your arguments compelling. I think our differences of opinion probably have more to do, at this point, with our opinions about how the police should have handled the situation as it built to its tragic conclusion. Fair enough. I’ll just mention a couple of things.
I find the “he has a gun” warnings unconvincing. There were police with guns in the room with her, just a few feet away; in the excitement, I’m not sure she would have understood that those weren’t the guns about which she was being warned.
Moments after the shooting, several heavily armed police came swarming up the stairs. The stairs ended at the doors — not in the back of the mob, not in the middle of the mob, but at the glass doors that needed to be defended. These additional police arrived immediately as the shooting took place; they couldn’t have been far away. (Someone elsewhere said that they had attempted to enter earlier, but backed out. I don’t know if that’s true.)
My point is that reinforcements appear to have been standing by.
Regarding the shooter: had he been in plain sight on the far side of the wall, gun drawn and pointed, he might have had a deterrent effect. I don’t know why he chose to remain hidden, off to the side, with his gun pointed.
Again, the transition from passivity to lethal force strikes me as damningly inappropriate. I’m unwilling to make excuses for police passivity. Ashli Babbitt was committing a crime, and had she been confronted with the clear threat of lethal force and yet persisted, I’d be much more willing to accept the appropriateness of her shooting. But the manner in which it was carried out strikes me as incompetent.
Finally, and most importantly, the decision to maintain the anonymity of the shooter is inexplicable and outrageous. Those who ask why we’re idolizing Ashli Babbitt are asking the wrong question. I’m not idolizing Ashli Babbitt. I’m objecting to the shrouding in mystery of the police execution of a citizen in questionable circumstances.
On that video people breaking the window and climbing in, I thought I heard someone in the background yelling “kill them!”
This is the right question, really the only question I’m concerned about at this point. She may have deserved to get shot for threatening a police officer. But why are we not having an inquiry, or trial involving those officers and those civilians? We don’t even know their names.
I didn’t but I wasn’t so much listening for background voices. But even so, was it Babbit who yelled that? Also notice that when Babbit walks away from the window the camera follows her. Why would the cameraman follow her just walking instead of concentrating on the fracas at the doors? Unless she was to play a bigger part than just one protester among many.
So who broke the window that Babbitt tried to crawl through? She just followed Antifa? What about the cop who was beaten with an American flag? Were those all Antifa plants?
I’m sorry, what? This was a giant false flag to randomly kill……. a single white woman? What on earth leads you to believe that? If the goal was to kill Trump supporters, which seems like where you’re going with this, then why not a whole lot more? There were ample targets that day.
I’m sorry, but I’m going to choose to believe my owns eyes and ears from the videos that day.
“So who broke the window that Babbitt tried to crawl through?” I don’t remember off-hand his facial features or specifics of his clothing, but I think he did it with a broomstick handle or some other piece of wood. In other words I don’t think it was who used the helmet to fracture the door windows. I’ll look in my bookmarks for the video.
“She just followed Antifa? ” She might have followed the crowd not knowing that they were agitators or that they were anti-fa, yes. One of the tactics of anti-fa is to use psychological techniques to stir up the emotions. So, it’s possible that they did that with her. (And I’m not saying that she wasn’t anti-fa herself, but that she didn’t know she was the target. — I know that could never ever happen. Not in America.
“Were those all Antifa plants?” I say they were. you’ll say they weren’t. I for the time being defer to those who watched and reported on the Hong Kong riots and who say they recognized the tactics developed in Hong Kong and witnessed by anti-fa organizers as those used at the Capitol.
I haven’t noticed anyone beaten with anything. I’ve seen windows being broken open by anti-fa, with pro-Trump protesters yelling at him to stop. Perhaps you could find the link to the video? I’d appreciate it. I do like to see all the evidence.
Watch this video. One guy clearly beats on a police officer with a flag, another throws an American flag at the line of police protecting the Capitol.
If these are all Antifa, it’s one heck of a cover. Bad people exist on our side too, and a lot of them showed up on 1/6.
Yes, there’s certainly something strange about the way it was all carried out. Maybe it was just a one-in-a-million series of odd and inappropriate decisions made on the spot without prior consideration or prior training. Or maybe it was all coordinated exactly as it happened.
Come to think of it, one thing I can’t understand, that doesn’t make any sense, is why any but the most newbie, untrained and undirected of police officers would take direction from the crowd — and they all took direction from a fairly authoritative voice in the crowd. I believe the first time was when the police in camouflaged gear (and holding their guns like they’d never held a rifle before, let alone held a rifle in a crowd, and were just play-acting) retreated down the steps, and the second time when the police in uniform retreated from in front of the doors. Both times iirc they did it at the direction of members of the protesting crowd. How in the world could this ever happen?
They even looked like they’d never carried a stretcher before. And they certainly weren’t using command voices when they were ordering the steps to be cleared. Someone at the bottom should have been already clearing the stairway as the stretcher was brought up. This really looks as if it wasn’t a clusterfark by the army, but by play-actors. Even the way they carried Babbit on the sidewalk outside the building showed complete obliviousness to the fact that her left breast was openly exposed. Again — play actors would have done this, but I doubt trained professionals would have.
Nothing about this day adds up to the narrative presented, the one that we all would so much like to believe.
A lot of people here really really really want to believe that it was Antifa.
There’s a lot that doesn’t add up (how did at least some rioters know how to find unmarked offices, why was Ayana Presley’s alarm button pulled out of the wall) – on the face of it this implies some ‘inside help’. Why couldn’t they be helping the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers? Why must the police be helping Antifa?
Thanks. Yeah, I’ve seen that but I didn’t, and still don’t take those guys to be Trump supporters. What Trump supporters would bring a hockey stick to a Trump rally? But we disagree on the character of Trump supporters.
Let’s put “a lot of them” in perspective. As a matter of percentage, how do you think the number of “bad people” who forced their way into the Capitol compares to the number of people who were at the rally on the mall and throughout the general area? Is that relevant ot an overall assessment of the situation?
Double post. Deleted.
None of this is true.