The Justice Department will not press charges against the Capitol Police officer who shot an Air Force veteran as she passed through a doorway in the US Capitol on January 6. Ashli Babbitt was killed when rioters broke into the Capitol as lawmakers inside confirmed Electoral College results confirming Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
An investigation found insufficient evidence to support criminal charges and determined that the officer could reasonably believe it was necessary to shoot Babbitt in self-defense or in defense of those evacuating the House Chamber.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old from Ocean Beach California, was part of a crowd attempting to break through doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, an area near the Chamber of the United States House of Representatives where Capitol Police members had been evacuated from the House Chamber.
Multiple videos posted on social media showed the tense scene in which Babbitt was shot, when a crowd used flagpoles, helmets and their own hands to smash through doors, which the Capitol Police had barricaded in an effort to prevent the crowd reach the evacuating House Members.
In video, Babbitt can be seen climbing through the doorway when a gunshot sounds. The Justice Department said a Capitol police officer fired a bullet with his service pistol and hit Babbitt in the left shoulder.
Videos show the officer, dressed in a suit and a surgical mask, shooting in Babbitt’s direction as she falls backwards out of the doorway.
She received help from a Capitol Police emergency response team and was taken to hospital, where she died of her injuries, the Justice Department said.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Department and the Civil Rights Department, along with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Department, conducted the investigation through video footage, statements of the officer involved, and other officers. and investigate witnesses, physical evidence of the shooting site and autopsy results.
The officer who shot Babbitt was not identified.
“Recognizing the tragic loss of life and offering condolences to Ms. Babbitt’s family, the US Attorney and the US Department of Justice have therefore closed the investigation into this case,” said the Department of Justice.
Babbitt had served in the military for more than a decade, including active duty in the Air Force and years in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
Her uncle, Anthony Mazziott Jr., said she was a Trump supporter and a military police officer who had been sent to Afghanistan several times. “She loved people, loved her friends, and loved her country,” said Anthony Mazziott Jr. to CBS partner KFMB.
The station reported that she left the military last year and ran a pool business with her husband, and her social media presence indicated that used up far-right misinformation.
Babbitt was one of five people who died in the assault on the Capitol. The Chief Medical Examiner’s DC officer said last week that two men in the riot, 55-year-old Kevin Greeson and 50-year-old Benjamin Phillips, died of complications from hypertensive heart disease, and a 34-year-old woman Roseanne Boyland died. to acute amphetamine intoxication.
The medical examiner has not yet revealed the cause of death for officer Brian Sicknick, who died after responding to the January 6 riots. Two men became arrested because he allegedly attacked Sicknick with a chemical spray.