A lawsuit charging wrongful death, assault and battery and negligence has been filed against the U.S. government by a legal team acting on behalf of the family and estate of Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The shooter was identified months later as then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
The complaint, brought by Judicial Watch, explains the details of what happened that day:
Ashli loved her country and wanted to show her support for President Trump’s America First policies and to see and hear the president speak live while he remained in office. Ashli did not go to Washington as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose. She was there to exercise what she believed were her God-given, American liberties and freedoms.
After the rally, Ashli, like a great many other patriotic Americans attending the rally, walked to the Capitol peacefully, a distance of approximately 1.5 miles. Two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers followed close behind Ashli as she climbed the stairs to the West Terrace. Ashli entered the Capitol on the Senate side long after others had done so. Once inside, Ashli encountered a female Capitol Police officer, who directed her to walk south toward the House side. Ashli complied, walking alone through the Capitol and ultimately arriving at the hallway outside the main door to the House chamber, where demonstrators had gathered. From there, Ashli walked by herself east, along the hallway outside the House chamber, then turned south, reaching the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby at the southeast corner of the Capitol.
The shooting occurred at the east entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby. After demonstrators filled the hallway outside the lobby, two individuals in the crowded, tightly packed hallway struck and dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors and the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd, who is a USCP commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli on sight as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd later confessed that he shot Ashli before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even identifying her as female. Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in the air, empty, and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and other officers in the lobby.
The complaint charges that Babbitt “was ambushed” and witnesses at the scene yelled at the officer, “You just murdered her.”
And it charges Byrd never was charged or disciplined for her death.
Babbitt, 35, was from San Diego where she and her husband ran a successful business. She traveled to Washington for the Women for America First rally at that time.
It also charges that Byrd was not in uniform, did not identify himself as an officer and was hidden from Babbitt when he fired the shot that killed her.
The complaint explains, “Ashli remained conscious for minutes or longer after being shot by Lt. Byrd. Ashli experienced extreme pain, suffering, mental anguish, and intense fear before slipping into pre-terminal unconsciousness.” And it said the medical examiner determined that the manner of death was homicide.
Further, because of Byrd’s history, his government employers “knew or should have known that Lt. Byrd was prone to behave in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner.”
It points out in 2021 he left a loaded Glock 22 handgun unattended in the bathroom at the Capitol Visitor Center, his “police powers” had been revoked on several occasions for failing to meet firearms qualifications requirements and for shooting into a moving vehicle occupied by teens or juveniles.
The case seeks “the full and just amount of Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000), plus costs and interest according to law, and any and all further relief to which plaintiffs may be justly entitled.”
The case is pending in federal court in California.
Tom Fitten, Judicial Watch’s chief, said, “The only homicide on January 6 was the unlawful shooting death of Ashli Babbitt. Her homicide by Lt. Byrd is a scandal beyond belief. This historic lawsuit seeks a measure of justice and government accountability for Ashli’s wrongful death.”
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None of this constitutes “politics” in any conventional or traditional American sense. Rather, it is all darkly spiritual. The greatest nation on earth is in the throes of a full-blown spiritual war between good and evil.
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