Beyond ‘rookie’ blunder? Family of US Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt to sue police and the officer who shot her – reports

The lawsuit will target the US Capitol Police Department and the unidentified plainclothes lieutenant who killed Babbitt, lawyer Terry Roberts told Zenger News on Thursday. Roberts, who represents Babbitt’s family, said he will serve notice to Capitol Police within 10 days that he plans to file the case in US Federal District Court in Washington.

Babbitt was shot on January 6 after she climbed up and tried to enter the Speaker’s Lobby, located near the House floor, through a broken window. The plainclothes lieutenant shot her from inside the Speaker’s Lobby, hitting her in the left shoulder and causing her to fall back into the hallway where rioters were trying to get through a barricaded doorway.

“A rookie police officer would not have shot this woman,” Roberts told Zenger. “If she committed any crime by going through the window and into the Speaker’s Lobby, it would have been trespassing, some misdemeanor crime. All a rookie cop would have done is arrest her.”

Babbitt, a 35-year-old Californian who traveled to Washington to participate in a rally in support of then-president Donald Trump, later died from her wound at a nearby hospital. 

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The US Department of Justice announced earlier this month that it won’t prosecute the shooter, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to prove any charges against him. Some members of Congress have praised the lieutenant for killing Babbitt, saying he saved lives.

US Representative Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) went so far as to say the rioters would have hung black lawmakers if they had been able to breach the Speaker’s Lobby and the House floor. “I have no doubt that some of us who look like me would have been hanging from the railings of the third floor onto the House floor, swinging like fruit, strange fruit,” Johnson said in January.

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But Roberts argued that Babbitt was clearly unarmed, and the lieutenant had other officers nearby to assist in arresting her. “She’s not brandishing a weapon,” he said. “She’s on the window ledge, and there’s no reason to think she’s armed.”

Debate over Babbitt’s killing has been one of the key points of contention as Democrats and the mainstream media have sought to frame the Capitol riot as a racist insurrection that merits a crackdown on right-wing domestic terrorism. President Joe Biden continued to tout the story line during his address to Congress on Wednesday, calling the riot “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Although the rioters have repeatedly been blamed for killing five people, it turns out that Babbitt, who was shot by police, was the only person actually killed. Three protesters died from medical conditions during the riot, including two by heart attack. And law enforcement officials finally admitted on April 19 that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes – contrary to the false media narrative that he had been killed by rioters.

Capitol Police have kept the name of the lieutenant who shot Ashli Babbitt a secret, though Roberts said he knows the man’s identity and part of his service record. Conservatives have argued that the shooter’s name should be made public, just as police in other violent incidents around the country have been identified amid a wave of Black Lives Matter protests. 

“We have the right to know who pulled the trigger,” Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly said. “Who killed Ashli Babbitt?”

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