WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal prosecutors will not charge a police officer who shot and killed a woman as she climbed through the broken part of a door during the uprising at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
For months, authorities had considered whether criminal charges were appropriate for the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year Air Force veteran from San Diego. The department’s decisionalthough expected, the investigation is officially closing.
Prosecutors said they watched video of the shooting, along with statements from the officer involved and other officers and witnesses, examined physical evidence of the scene, and viewed the autopsy results.
“Based on that investigation, officials have determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution,” the department said in a statement.
Video clips posted online show Babbitt, dressed in a backpack with stars and stripes, as he steps forward and begins to pass through the mid-height opening of an area of the Capitol known as the Speaker’s Lobby when a gunshot is heard. She falls backwards. Another video shows other unidentified people trying to lift Babbitt. You can see them sink back to the ground.
Mark Schamel, an attorney for the prosecutor, a lieutenant whose name was not released by the Justice Department, said the decision not to press charges was “ the only correct conclusion ” and that his client had “ saved the lives of countless members of Congress. and the rioters. “
Prosecutors said Babbitt was part of the crowd attempting to enter the House when Capitol Police officers evacuated members of Congress from the room. The officers used furniture to barricade the glass doors between the hallway and the Speaker’s Lobby to try to ward off the rioters, who kept trying to break through those doors and smash the glass with flagpoles, helmets and other items.
At the same time, Babbitt tried to climb through one of the doors where the glass had broken out. A Capitol police officer in the Speaker’s Lobby then fired a single round with his service weapon and punched Babbitt in the shoulder, prosecutors said.
Schamel pointed out that the officer fired only one shot and did so only after “clearly identifying himself and ordering the crowd not to get through the barricade.”
“He used immense reluctance to fire just one shot, and his actions kept the crowd from breaking through and turning a gruesome day in American history into something much worse,” said Schamel.
She fell to the ground before a police tactical team rushed into the area and provided first aid. Babbitt was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Babbitt is one of five people who died as a result of the riot, including a police officer. Three other people died from medical emergencies.
The Department of Justice does not bring criminal charges in most of the police shootings it investigates, in part because of the high prosecution burden. Criminal charges were not expected in this case, as videos of the Babbitt shooting show entering a forbidden space and it would have been a challenge to rethink an officer’s actions during the violent and chaotic day.
Specifically, the investigation did not reveal any evidence to establish that, at the time when the officer fired a single shot at Mrs. Babbitt, the officer did not reasonably believe it was necessary to do so in self-defense or in defense of the members of Congress and others evacuating the House Chamber, ”prosecutors said.