Ashli Babbitt Killer 'Gave No Warning'

The House Select Committee supposedly investigating the U.S. Capitol riot hasn't even mentioned her name, but the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt during the protest against the elite theft of the 2020 Presidential election could still well come back to haunt them.

In an interview with RealClearInvestigations, Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts revealed that he has gathered evidence indicating the officer who shot the unarmed veteran, a plainclothes police lieutenant, remained silent. Far from warning Babbitt he would shoot, Roberts said the officer “ambushed” her from the side where she could not see he had taken up position in a hall doorway and had trained his weapon on her.

“It’s not debatable,” said Roberts. “There was no warning.”

A Maryland personal-injury lawyer who specializes in police misconduct cases, Roberts has won several million dollars for victims of police brutality. He said he is preparing to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Capitol Police and the officer, seeking more than $10 million in damages.

Babbitt, 35, was fatally wounded as she attempted to climb through the broken window above a door leading to the House chamber, where lawmakers were being evacuated. Standing to the side of a pile of furniture blocking the doors and out of Babbitt’s view, the officer took aim with his Glock service pistol, striking her in the left shoulder. 

More than six months after the shooting, the U.S. Capitol Police still refuse to release the name of the officer. But several sources have identified him as Lt. Michael L. Byrd, a 53-year-old veteran of the force who was serving as commander of the House Chamber Section of the Capitol Police on Jan. 6. He has not returned to duty and remains on paid administrative leave, apparently avoiding any contact with those seeking the truth about the shooting.

If Babbitt was not given an opportunity to obey commands before she was shot, it could figure prominently in the family’s planned wrongful-death suit against the officer. Roberts said he has interviewed several witnesses who were standing outside the Speaker’s Lobby with Babbitt, and that they'll testify they did not hear the officer issue "any kind of warning."

He also said video recordings his investigators have analyzed reveal that other police who were in the hallway with the officer did not react as expected before he fired. He said they seemed to be caught unaware as he opened fire. Roberts said he has lined up expert witnesses, including ex-cops and use-of-force experts, who will testify that the officers behind him in the Speaker’s Lobby would have taken cover or crouched and pulled their own weapons if they heard the lieutenant give repeated warnings he was going to shoot. Instead, Roberts said, they appeared to be casually standing or walking around in the lobby in the seconds leading up to the shooting.

“Those other officers were within earshot. If he’s yelling, they certainly aren’t showing any reaction to it,” he said.

“If he was giving any kind of warning, why didn’t they react?” Roberts added that no warnings can be heard coming from the officer in any videos taken at the scene.

Ashli Babbitt was the first martyr in the new struggle for freedom in the former United States of America. She will not be the last, but neither will she be forgotten - any more than her killer and the criminal elite he was defending will be forgiven.

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