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Who Killed Ashli Babbitt, and Why?
Greetings, Ricochetti. With apologies for my long absence from the site, I return today to bring your attention to a piece I’ve written for The Pipeline, “Who Killed Ashli Babbitt?” You’ll recall that Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer during the so-called insurrection of Jan. 6. She was unarmed and did not appear to pose a threat to anyone at the time she was shot.
In a time when police shootings far more justifiable than this one are endlessly scrutinized in the press, how is it that Babbitt’s death has escaped even a fraction of the coverage devoted to other police killings? Here’s a sample from the piece:
At the time the shot was fired, the Speaker’s Lobby appeared to be empty save for the shooter and two or three men walking casually at the far end. Babbitt, who was of slight build, carried neither a weapon nor anything that might reasonably be mistaken for one. The officer was about ten feet away from Babbitt when he shot her and cannot reasonably claim he was under an imminent deadly attack at the time, nor can he claim he was defending someone else from such an attack as no one else visible on the far side of the doorway appeared to be closer than fifty feet away. If it is true that the officer fired in self-defense or the defense of others, what was his explanation for doing so when no justification is evident in the video, the only publicly available evidence we have? The government will not say.
I didn’t choose the headline for the piece, and for me the question of who killed Babbitt is of far less importance than why he did. As I write in the piece, local police departments are far more transparent in their investigations of officer-involved shootings than they were just a few years ago. Why should officers working for the federal government be governed by a lesser standard? Why should the Department of Justice be allowed to issue a brief memo saying the officer was faultless and expect us to leave it at that and go away? And why have the media, who have been so quick to condemn police officers involved in far less questionable incidents, been so incurious about Ashli Babbitt’s death?
Please read the column and weigh in here with your comments. And if anyone wishes to catch up with my recent writing, my articles for The Pipeline can be found here, my work for PJ Media is here, and my NRO archive is here.
Published in Policing
So what made her uniquely dangerous among all members of the mob? Why was she perceived to be so dangerous as to deserve shooting by one cop while others nearby did nothing to stop her?
Correct.
I’m behind the times. There was originally only one officer rumored to have shot Babbitt (a rumor is all anyone has when there is a news blackout), and he wrote provocative twitter posts that prior to 1/6 included iirc advocating shooting pro-Trump protesters.
Now I see there is a second officer”identified” as the officer, but I haven’t read much about this second rumored shooter. He is reported to be the one who left his firearm in the Capitol’s Visitors Center public toilet in 2019.
I don’t feel like using their names.
Thanks for that. On to the further misadventures of Groot, Shortshanks, and Crimesha!
She was the one at the front of the mob, at that moment, the one who started to climb through the panel frame. The officer didn’t just shoot her randomly.
What the “mob” was doing and who was leading it, and who organized it is a matter that I suspect you would dispute. The “mob” as seen in the videos were not burning, looting and murdering like the one’s for the past year in US cities. So, given the tolerance of police toward other rcent rioters, I’m not sure where shooting an unarmed person is justified in your mind with this one.
If I recall correctly, she wasn’t the only person standing at that window. What made her a bigger threat than the man standing next to her? Why not two shots, if the threat of people at that window was so great? And one shoots until the threat is down. There was time for more shots.
Imagine if this guy squeezed off just one round to “stop the mob”:
Just stop it.
She was shot when she started climbing through. And that one shot stopped the rest of them from climbing through.
Ultimately the USCP reports to Nancy and Mitch. There is a board and at least four congressional committees that have oversight. All of those people work for us…and not one of them seems to be interested in transparency…or is even being asked about this. That entire building is corrupt to the core.
Effective, yes, legal, no.
You really like this, don’t you?
You’re advocating shooting an unarmed woman as a show to stop a crowd. She wasn’t carrying a hammer or tire iron. Or throwing bottles of frozen water. Or a molotov cocktails. Or spraying police with bottles of urine. Or setting off fireworks. Or brandishing a gun.
Why do you support her having been shot to death?
So what is a legal way to stop a mob? What would have been the legal way to stop that mob?
For pete’s sake. The “mob” was at a standstill while the three policemen were standing in front of the partition. That’s how they did it. You should be asking: Why did the police walk away?
So what was that mob doing? Why were they there? Did the police have reasonable cause to believe that they would be violent if they managed to get to legislators?
Jack, do you have a link to the video? May have missed it. Cops know better than first year law students when they are authorized to use deadly force. Saw this in bright lights when I worked on the Ruby Ridge case for the FBI and Doug and I have debated about that case. A female crawling through an opening, with no weapon, even if unauthorized or trespassing, is hard to picture as a deadly threat. But would like to see the videos first.
And how long was that going to last? How successful had the police been at stopping the mob from advancing so far?
Wouldn’t you? I would have if I was there and I had the option. It’s not like there were no physical attacks on police on that day.
Funny how that works. Remember when the infamous Client #9 (i.e. the governor of NY) was going down and the FBI grabbed all of the data on the entire operation…and, in a world where the 19 intelligence organizations all race to their media contacts to make sure we all know if Trump farted in the oval office, the names of Clients #1-#8 have been a safely kept secret ever since. Have I mentioned that the beltway is rotten to the core?
Watch the videos: I’ll give a hint. Several young men armed with video cameras were milling about, and even preceding the officers up the stairs to film the events; once upstairs, some fewer young men were coordinatedly banging on the windows and exchanging tools (helmets, sticks, etc) for the purpose breaking the glass and to pop out the Plex window that Babbitt tried to go through. Others were speaking commands, including simply telling the police to move away. Police were everywhere in the crowd, and they too were milling about.
There was even a man there in a suit casually surveying the crowd. He’s the one who checked out Babbitt’s body after she was shot before walking away.
Have you even watched the videos??
Well, let’s see. One cop could have grabbed her while she came through the window (or pulled her through once she started through) and another could have slapped cuffs on her. Boom – she’s under arrest. They still might have lost control of the window and the situation, but the advantage of my way rather than your way is nobody gets shot in the throat my way.
I ask questions and instead of answering, you, as usual, ignore the questions and ask provocative, leading questions instead of stating your views. You are not engaging in a debate, but baiting.
Hello!
Look in the mirror before you accuse me.
Yes, so it comes down to how important was it for them to maintain control of the situation there?
But Mr. Tough Cop Guy didn’t need to shoot her, period. He could have cuffed her. Or ignored her, as many other police seemed to do that day, actually opening doors and standing aside.
But keep going. I used to love pushing all the buttons on the elevators, too.
Again, disingenuous factless baiting. Unlike you, I have never called for anyone to be shot.
But you are advocating shooting an unarmed person to intimidate a crowd from breaking windows.
Yes, he needed someone on their knees already, with both hands occupied so he could ‘put her down’.
Still not getting this. Was the gal screaming ” I will kill you” with a crowbar when crawling through the window? What the Anitfa types were yelling outside the building is irrelevant. Either the cop who shot her was in fear of his life or he wasn’t. Third parties not in the equation.
Yup.
Of course third parties are in the equation. Who and what were the cops protecting there? It makes no sense to exclude that – it’s why the cops were there.
So there were civilians behind the cop when she was breaking in through the window that he thought he was protecting? Not sure I saw this info before. Is it on the video?