If we are going to investigate the events of January 6, 2021, we should start with the killing of Ashli Babbitt.
Babbitt was shot by an unidentified law enforcement officer as she was crouched precariously in the framework of a broken interior window in the Capitol Building, located outside the Speaker’s Lobby off the House Floor. Babbitt was killed by the only shot fired that day and was the only documented fatality related directly to law enforcement activity. The identity of the officer who shot Babbitt remains a mystery.
Despite video evidence raising serious questions of excessive force, a Justice Department investigation determined there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against the officer who fired the fatal shot.
The DOJ, employing a strange double-negative phrasing, concluded that the investigation found “no evidence… the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self-defense.”
Babbitt was 35 years old, an Air Force veteran who served in the military police. She was unarmed and not threatening anyone with violence. Had she been given the opportunity to surrender to police, she in all likelihood would have. But a policeman chose not to give her that chance.
Ashli Babbitt’s family plans to file a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Capitol Police, which may shed some light on the circumstances leading to the shooting. Meanwhile Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DC government for Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner records concerning the killing. Judicial Watch seeks investigative reports, photographs, witness statements, dispatch logs, schematics, ballistics, video footage, and MPD officials’ electronic communications concerning Babbitt’s death, as well as autopsy reports, toxicology reports, notes, photographs, and OCME officials’ electronic communications. Previous such records requests have been ignored.
This is only one issue concerning January 6 that needs to be investigated, especially as the Democrats’ “armed insurrection” narrative begins to crumble. Pressure from a March 2021 Judicial Watch lawsuit helped lead to the disclosure that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes and not, as the media told us, from being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. Judicial Watch has sued the Pentagon and the U.S. Park Police for information on deployment of troops and warnings about the January 6 U.S. Capitol disturbance. Judicial Watch is also seeking Defense Department records about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 8, 2021, telephone call with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Army General Mark Milley, and Capitol Police emails and video related to January 6.
