On June 6, 2025, the Department of Justice and the estate of Ashli Babbitt signed a settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of Ashli’s family.
The man who shot and killed Ashli was Lieutenant Michael Byrd, who had a checkered history in handling firearms and dubious justification for the shooting. But the questions about why Ashli had to die go far beyond the questions about the actions of Byrd.
Here are the events in the last hours of Ashli’s life.
On January 6, Ashli went to Washington, D.C., to see President Donald Trump speak at the Ellipse (at 01:32 in the linked video), then walked to the Capitol (at 01:45). According to statements in the lawsuit, she climbed the stairs to the West Terrace followed by two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers. Nobody tried to stop her. She then entered the Capitol on the Senate side, and the lawsuit states: “Once inside, Ashli encountered a female Capitol Police Officer, who directed her to walk south towards the House side.”
Which she did. She walked through the Capitol Rotunda, one of many making their way politely between two velvet ropes (at 03:00).
She arrived at the foyer leading to the Speaker’s lobby. Three members of the Capitol Hill Police, Officer Kyle Yetter, Officer Christopher Lanciano, and Sergeant Timothy Lively, were standing in front of the doors (at 03:42). Two windows had already been hit and were cracked, but despite this attack, the officers left their posts and headed towards the steps (at 03:48).
The moment they began to go, members of the crowd filled the void and started banging on the windows again. With the attack happening right in front of them, the officers did nothing (at 04:30).
One of the attackers was Zachary Alam, who smashed the windows with a black helmet. The lawsuit states that Yetter, Lanciano, and Lively had an order to guard the doors, but:
Instead of controlling, de-escalating or stopping Alam, Sgt. Lively, Officer Yetter and Officer Lanciano moved away from the doors and stood along the adjacent wall to the right of the doors.
Why did they allow the attack? Did they make the decision on their own? Did they receive instructions from someone else?
After Lively, Yetter, and Lanciano left their posts, a group of officers from the Capitol Hill Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT) started up the stairs (at 00:21 on this video). The CERT officers are better equipped, so one could theorize that they were replacing the original officers. But even if that were the case, why couldn’t Lively, Yetter, and Lanciano hold their ground mere seconds until the CERT team got to the top of the stairs?
Furthermore, the CERT team never got to the top of the stairs. The CERT member closest to the top stops to talk with a man in a dark jacket and a Covid mask. Mask Man chats casually with the CERT member as if nothing of consequence were happening around them (at 00:24), while Ashli climbs into the window (at 00:27).
In an interview on 60 Minutes, Michael Byrd said that if people got through that door (at 13:43), “they are in the House Chamber and upon the Members of Congress.” If the Capitol Hill Police needed to protect Members of Congress from such serious danger, why didn’t they rush up the stairs? Why didn’t they pull Ashli back from the window?
It’s difficult to believe that all of these officers decided individually not to do their job. I think the natural response for a trained police officer would be to move forward and stop people from doing more damage. It is simply logical that it would have taken an order from above for all of them to stand down.
It wouldn’t have occurred to Michael Byrd to aim his gun at Ashli if the other officers had protected the entrance; if there were no broken window for Ashli to climb into.
However, that does not erase Byrd’s role.
Byrd said that Ashli was a threat. But was she? She was standing in a window with her arms forward, not holding onto anything (at 00:30).
Furthermore, there is a pile of furniture on the other side of the entrance (at 00:15). Byrd talked about building this pile of furniture (at 12:58):
I went back out to assist, ah, the few officers…and some Members, we were making, putting up a makeshift barricade, using furniture, ah, tables, whatever we could lift….
Even if Ashli went through the window, she would have to get past this pile.
Byrd stated they were “running out of options.” Did he not have a taser? Could he not have run over and grabbed this petite, 5’2”, 110lb woman?
Byrd said that he didn’t know whether or not Ashli was armed and that he couldn’t see her hands or what was in her backpack (at 21:14):
[I]t was later, you know, [I] found out that the subject did not have a weapon, but there was no way to know that at that time. And I could not fully see her hands, or what was in the backpack….
So, Byrd shot an American citizen without knowing whether she was armed or not. Basically, he admitted that he shot her just in case. Just in case.
Byrd had previous problems with the misuse of his weapon. On February 27, 2019, an article in Roll Call stated the following:
After the House adjourned on Monday, Lt. Mike Byrd left his Glock 22 in a bathroom in the Capitol Visitor Center complex, according to sources familiar with the incident.
And that was not Byrd’s only issue with weapons. The Judicial Watch lawsuit states that:
79. Lt. Byrd’s police powers had been revoked on more than one occasion prior to January 6, 2021, for failing to meet or complete semiannual firearms qualification requirements….
80. Lt. Byrd’s police powers also were revoked for a prior off-duty shooting into a stolen, moving vehicle in which the occupants were teenagers or juveniles. The stolen vehicle was Lt. Byrd’s car. Lt. Byrd fired multiple shots at the fleeing vehicle in a suburban area. Stray bullets from Lt. Byrd’s firearm struck the sides of homes nearby. An official investigation found that Lt. Byrd’s use of force was not justified.
Byrd states in the 60 Minutes interview that on January 6 (at 00:15):
I was the Commander for the House Chamber section, in charge of the security for the United States House of Representatives.
How can any police officer hold a leadership position with that aforementioned history?
Despite all of this, to leave the guilt only with Michael Byrd is to practice avoidance. Ashli Babbitt’s family can make no further claims, but the still unanswered questions surrounding the shooting of Ashli must be part of a larger investigation of what really happened on January 6.
We the people of this nation, all of us, need answers.
Susan lives in a small town in Idaho. She writes, volunteers in her community, walks precincts, attends town hall meetings, and gardens. She is the author of How to Understand Your MAGA Friends and Family.
image, Pixabay license.
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