Official: Capitol Police Clears Officer in Ashli Babbitt Shooting
“The department said in a memo outlining the investigation that the officer’s actions were within department policy, which allows deadly force only when an officer reasonably believes they are protecting themselves or others from serious physical harm.”
On Saturday, Stacey blogged about NBC News’s report on a memo stating the Capitol Police exonerated the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6th.
NBC News never revealed the memo.
They do not have to now. The Capitol Police announced they cleared the officer:
The probe by the U.S. Capitol Police exonerated the officer for his use of force. The department said in a memo outlining the investigation that the officer’s actions were within department policy, which allows deadly force only when an officer reasonably believes they are protecting themselves or others from serious physical harm.
The department said it was not identifying the officer because he and his family “have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, Members, staff and the democratic process.”
The DOJ decided in April not to press charges against the officer. They claimed they could not find evidence the officer violated Babbitt’s civil rights.
However, the department found it “reasonable for the officer to believe he was firing in self-defense or in defense of lawmakers fleeing the House chamber.”
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Comments
This was all done in complete secrecy. If a city, county or state law enforcement officer shoots and kills someone, the officer’s name is made public within hours and all video footage is released to the media.
She was a mere white woman. And just a veteran.
Had she been an obese, drug-addicted member of a Protected Species, then, what you say applies.
Had she been a democrat at the Supreme Court building, you’d be saying that justice was done. Personally, I don’t see the difference between them.
Leftists were looting and burning their way through our cities, not to mention actually taking territory and declaring new nations on them, supported by traitors in government positions, like the Seattle mayor, for one example. They deserved to be shot dead in the streets (all looters should be shot on sight). To even try and compare what a handful of yahoos were doing on Jan 6th (prompted in large part by pantifa scum and undercover FBI traitors) is beyond ridiculous.
Thousands of democrats should have been shot dead as they looted and rioted and burned everything they could find and many dem mayors and governors and DAs and police chiefs should have been dragged out of their offices kicking and screaming as they were arrested for giving aid and comfort to an insurrection, never to be seen or heard from again. Letting all those America-hating traitors go free in 2020 was the biggest mistake Trump made (and he didn’t make many mistakes)
You don’t know what I think.
Hell, when a city cop kills someone, the investigation is often conducted by another level of government, such as the county sheriff or the state police. Even the Feds conduct civil rights investigations into local (state) shootings. Why wasn’t an independent investigator brought in to do this investigation? The Feds investigating the Feds seems a conflict of interest.
What, and risk getting the wrong result? You don’t know much about how our masters in D.C. operate, do you?
Andrew Branca (Law of Self Defense Blog) talked about it at the time. He regarded it as unfortunate, but he felt that the officer did have a good case for self defense under the facts of the case known at the time.
I share the upset at the way this was done. I also share the upset that the Kangaroo Kort would have been in full session if the officer was white and Ms. Babbitt had been black. That is, after the usual riots and arson.
Given NO ONE knew what the details were I fail to see how Andrew or anyone could say anything about the issue??
I also fail to see how this woman could be considered a threat to anyone for trying to get through a door when you look at the video of her shooting.
Quite a lot of video evidence in the public domain so yes it’s pretty plausible to come to a view
Andrew said there were reports of pipe bombs. The officer that shot her said he knew of the pipe bombs and thought she may have one in her back pack. Thus he reasonably thought he was on danger.
Not that I agree.
If having a backpack was a legitimate reason for the Capitol Police to open fire on protesters, they would have needed a vast amount of ammunition because practically everybody had a backpack or duffel of some sort. It was cold after all, so where do you put gloves or a scarf, perhaps some bottled water and a snack (because nothing in the vicinity was open).
She was a threat in context of the group she was with. Are you sure you watched the video?
And if nimrod had been half and inch over and shot the officer right behind her?
No one knew the details? What are the missing details? Did you even bother to watch Andrew’s video about it? He spoke for 40+ minutes on every aspect of self-defense law that one needs to hurdle over in order to make a valid claim of self-defense.
Join his site and learn about this stuff.
Two different things here. As we didn’t have the entire story OR video of tge incident no one could talk about it with authority.
People could take a guess as to what happened but they couldn’t talk about the incident with any kind of certainty regardless of how much you want them to know what went on.
40 minutes of guessing is exactly that and nothing more.
Thanks, I’ll take the most knowledgeable man in America over this pathetic explanation
Even “the most knowledgeable man in America” can get things wrong. Just look at Faucci.
I hear you, mailman, but frankly, if Andrew says this was a good shoot, I’m going with his assessment. If you think about it, say this was an antifa puke or a burning, looting, and murdering “mostly peaceful protester,” would breaking through the glass in a door and attempting to crawl through it be a shootable offense? I kind of think so. That said, I do think that there are points to be made regarding the police presence behind her, etc. that people have brought up, but . . . . . I’d be backing the cop if he shot an antifa or a BLM punk for the same actions, so I can’t not back him in this instance. That said, this trigger-happy cop needs to be put on desk duty until he retires and we foot his fancy pension. Good shoot or no, that was one scared whiny baby, a complete disgrace.
With two officers directly behind her? Advancing on the person to shoot them? Where was the concern for those behind her as collateral damage? Maybe Andrew would comment on the shooters really really cool gun handling compared to the (white) officers. “AOJ”…. ability to do bodily harm, opportunity to do bodily harm, jeopardy of the officers. Considering the WIDE latitude given the Capitol Police I can assume anything goes.
There were police milling around next to Ashli Babbit when all that happened. POLICE. Acting as if nothing that serious was going on. It was very clear on any of a number of videos that anyone who cared to look into the situation saw.
Several officers were in a position, with firearms drawn, to take the same action, but didn’t. The judgment of the officer who fired is condemned by his fellows who judged that the situation did not justify the use of lethal force.
lhw, I have tried to point this out to many people, people who should know better. And they blow it off. It’s very frustrating. You are the only person I’ve ever seen outside of his site who has bothered to mention his analysis of this case.
Either we follow the law or we don’t, and Andrew Branca laid out the case in painstaking detail why this was a legally justified shooting. A bad, bad, outcome, nonetheless. He even says that if there is evidence later that comes to light that changes things, he’ll obviously change his viewpoint.
The guy knows his stuff, he sticks to the law and has always been fair-minded. It is beyond frustrating when rigorous standards that he follows are ignored.
Sadly, If her skin had been a different color she’d have had justice.
People better wake up. Neo-racists are brainwashing their followers to hate Whites. Anyone with half a brain can see that this is terrible for America. But the Dems refuse to object because they benefit from dancing with this evil seductress (racism personified). Dems are playing with fire.
This is a time to help any clear thinking moderate Dem understand that their party has changed and does not represent them. There should be 100,000’s Dems leaving the Dem Party.
Ben, no offence but clear thinking and logic don’t support your position at all. The facts are that the LE was well within his rights to shoot given the threat level. Trying to make some kind of comparison with other incidents is a disservice as you’d have to know the merits of each case.
What threat level was that? There were nearly as many officers in the immediate area as there were protesters. None of the protestors were armed. The “barrier” scenario in self-defense comes to mind. Someone with a knife in hand on the other side of a 15′ chain-link fence doesn’t present an immediate threat even though he’s armed. Access to the chamber was via a small broken window, and the person coming through it was unarmed, female, and not threatening bodily harm. The rest of the crowd was still on the other side of the barrier and did not have firearms (contact weapons not posing an immediate threat through the barrier of the door), so were themselves not immediate threats to the officers on the other side of the door. There was, at the moment Babbitt was shot, exactly one person who could have presented an immediate and serious threat to the officers, and she did not present such a threat.
Babbit broke a door window in a different room. That’s the theat?
Was Michael Brown the one who tried to grab the officer’s gun? Said officer got investigated three separate times while Brown became a postmodern marty.
Protestors were smashing a screen with objects so yes they were armed, and there were lots of them too. Again Babbitt was piling through a gap so the scenario there is if she gets through then its close quarters which is distinctly dangerous, what if the officer loses his fire arm. Not threatening bodily harm? how did you reach that conclusion, we know 140 officers were assaulted on the day, there were threats to LE , to Mike Pence to other members of congress. You are trying to view this as a threat in one moment, that’s no good at all especially in context of protecting others which was his job.
I think that Dems are losing members at a high rate, They are also bringing in illegals at an even higher rate.
When we get back control, every illegal must be tracked down and expelled.
Capital Police should cease having special priveleges.
You’re mostly right.
The Capital Police should cease.
We have too many praetorians as it is.
Was it ever in any doubt?
Along with FDA giving full approval of the vaccine
We all have targets on our backs now
And in our blood…
Sounds like it is time for a wrongful death civil lawsuit from her family. This situation could have been easily handled without shooting her.
Put enough pressure on him, maybe the public will get lucky and he’ll eat his gun.
That evinces more faith in the legal system than appears warranted.
Subotai Bahadur
If this officer’s actions were deemed to be within the use of force policy for the Capitol Police, why the secrecy?
You can argue that security is paramount. Death threats are a bad thing. But such threats are nothing new, especially for higher profile Federal Law Enforcement. And the claim that this officer has unfortunately received threats tells me that he’s already been identified.
So again, why the secrecy? The whole event that unfolded that day is a puzzle, missing half the pieces.
Because they weren’t really within the “use of force policy” for the Capitol Police but it isn’t politically advantageous for them to charge the officer as that would be in direct conflict with the Ashli Babbitt was an insurrectionist bent on overthrowing the government narrative the authorities are using to justify the murder.
Yeah. Just like it was advantageous to repeat the mantra that Officer Sicknick was killed by blunt force trauma inflicted by a supposed “Trump Supporter” with a fire extinguisher, when he actually died two days later from a stroke
A sad situation to be sure, but totally unrelated to the Capitol riots.
The bigger the lies…
I wuz in fear for muh life blam blam.
If the shooter was white, and the woman who was shot and killed was black, just imagine how differently the narrative would have played out.
The noun “narrative” is apt.
Do you seriously want to go down that line of argument. You are hilarious. Imagine the police response at the front line if they were black.
He is now in fear, eventually it will be worse.
From an old RP game’s booklet:
Officer Foley’s quote: BLAM – BLAM – Stop! – BLAM – Police! – BLAM
Andrew Branca, friend of this site, the most knowledgeable self-defense attorney in America has said this was a legally justified shooting. He explains why, in detail, on his site.
People need to take emotion and politics out of it, which seems to be impossible.
Being legally justified and otherwise justified are not the same. I have no doubt that karma will eventually bring the shooter to justice. I bet that other Capital police are thankful that the shooter is no longer in their ranks.
And that might be so.
But then why the secrecy surrounding the investigation?
It’s exactly the demand the public makes in any other shooting situation.
Justified or not, it’s obvious the investigation was of a “kangaroo court” sort.
Can you refer me any 2nd tier self-defense lawyers in Mr Branca’s network?
Cause next Tuesday —- well, that’s for me and my self defense lawyer.
He don’t have to worry, I’m gon’ pick up all those…
Well, that’ll be between me and him.
Just leave me the eff alone. I got rights. They passed by here yesterday.
This must be the same bunch that investigated Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. Did Bill Barr hire them?