“Former President Donald Trump commemorated Ashli Babbitt — the rioter fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6 — in a prerecorded video to mark what would have been her 36th birthday,” Huffington Post reported on Monday, October 11, 2021 (read story here).
Which is his privilege. So is this: “Trump also used the occasion to ‘demand justice’ for Babbitt and called for the Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into her death,” Huffington Post said.
He can say whatever he wants. But justice for Babbitt, had she lived, would have been a criminal conviction and jail time. She was the point person of a mob attacking members of Congress hastily evacuating only a few feet away, and the cop who shot her was the last line of defense between them and the mob.
That line of defense consisted of three cops against dozens of violent insurrections committing criminal acts to interfere with the constitutional process of certifying a presidential election, all of whom deserve to do jail time.
She was shot once in the shoulder or neck as she climbed through the rioter-shattered window of a barricaded door in a hallway leading to the Speaker’s Chamber, where members of Congress were still in the process of fleeing. She ignored warnings. The cop was only trying to stop her, not kill her, and other officers immediately rendered first aid.
Wikipedia’s account of the riot says (here), “Republican Representative Markwayne Mullin said he witnessed the shooting; he felt that Lt. Byrd ‘didn’t have a choice’ but to shoot, and that this action ‘saved people’s lives.'”
The Department of Justice did investigate the shooting; so did the Capitol police. Both found it justified. Ashli Babbitt was a domestic terrorist, not a victim of police brutality. Her death was her own fault.
Trump’s desire to glorify the insurrectionists isn’t a reason to reopen the case, any more than his election loss justifies nullifying its results. Our system doesn’t cater to people who think they can throw out the rules instead of following them. Let’s hope and pray it never does.
Was there an official story released by the police department? So the rules are different in the nations capital?
We can capture Puerto Rican separatists who shoot members of the House from the peanut gallery, but this woman just deserved to be shot? She deserved death? Or is it the politics of putting a black officer on trial for shooting a white woman in the nations capital. Surely if the shooting was justified then justice will see the officer proven not guilty by a jury of his peers.
“Deserve” has nothing to do with it. This was self-defense. It was Capitol defenders doing their job of protecting the people inside. How, exactly, do three cops “capture” an entire mob? This was the last line of defense. It held, but only barely; it’s unfortunate that holding it involved loss of life, but nobody asked these rioters to attack the Capitol. Well, maybe someone did, and that’s who should be on trial.