15:15

In her selfie video, Ashli Babbitt looks happy and relaxed. Like those around her, she’s walking the kind of walk one might take along a hiking trail in the fall. Hoodie pulled up over her head, her cheeks and nose are flushed from the chill. She’s wearing a red-white-and-blue winter jacket and a backpack. The Washington Monument in the background, as she walks along the street towards the Capitol. Her sign-off is “God Bless America, Patriots!”

At 15:15 on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, 35-year old Ashli Babbitt was pronounced dead. She suffered a single gunshot wound to her left shoulder. Babbitt died at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center (110 Irving St., NW, Washington, DC) after efforts to revive her proved futile.

Rewind for a moment. As laid out in my book, USCP Chief Stephen Sund testified that at 12:52 pm, he learned of the bombs outside the RNC and the DNC. At or about the same time, he saw the first people arrive at the Capitol. This is our clock launch point.

A combination of FOIA records, obtained by me and Judicial Watch, now allow me to develop some time points to expand our understanding of what happened before and after the fatal shooting.

At 14:46, USCP officer Michael Byrd was in plain clothes in position behind a column and inside a door frame of a hallway wall to the left of Babbitt. Between them were two, ceiling-to-floor doors, constructed of wooden lower and safety glass upper. Across the hallway from Byrd, another officer, also completely obscured. Along that hallway, another thirteen officers. In all, there were fifteen officers, all armed, all obscured, and all ready to face the ten individuals that included Babbitt.

The area is formally described as “The east doors of the Speaker’s Lobby, just outside of the House Chamber” in various Metro PD “Report of Investigation” narratives.

Coming up the stairwell in the hall behind the individuals were at least three USCP riot squad officers. They were clad in black from helmet to shin guards to boots. They were equipped with polymer long guns, loaded with accessories. My FOIA request for firearms specifics was denied by USCP, and will be appealed to the DC Circuit Court.

The individuals at those doors were surrounded by fully-armed and geared-up officers of the USCP.

Also in the hallway, on Babbitt’s side of the door, were three uniformed officers who were not USCP. Initially, in the video shot by John Sullivan, the three officers stood stoically with their backs to the doors, facing the individuals.

Immediately before Byrd leans out of the shadows to fire at Babbitt, the three other officers step to their left without so much as a glance at each other. The Anchorage Daily News reported that one of the officers guarding the door said to the others, “They’re ready to roll.” These three officers were to the right of Babbitt at the time of the shooting, their backs against the wall.

In hundreds of pages of interview notes from the records of DC Metro Police, are the notes of interviews of numerous USCP officers. No one says a command was given to open fire and no one identifies the three uniformed officers.

Byrd fired the fatal shot at 14:46.

All the plain-clothed officers on the other side of the doors, including Byrd, evacuate the scene. Every single USCP plain-clothed officer left Babbitt unattended. All 15 of them.

The three unknown uniformed officers also left the scene.

The three USCP riot squad officers arrive from the stairwell and one officer is photographed applying pressure with his gloved hands to the wound site on Babbitt. Metro PD arrives shortly thereafter and “the officers were able to clear the rioters out of the hallway.”

I remain unaware of the identification of the individuals who were there in the hall with Babbitt, except the videographer. The videographer, John Sullivan, was interviewed by the FBI immediately on January 7 as a witness to the Babbitt killing. His video was published only because he rapidly sold it to NBC for $90,000. (The feds have reportedly seized these monies, at the same time DOJ increased the charges against Sullivan and demanded forfeiture of the funds as being traceable to the commission of the crimes charged.)

As Sullivan said to Rolling Stone magazine in an article published January 14, 2021:

I knew she was going to die. The guy who was pointing a gun at her was leaning with an intent to shoot; he was not playing. There’s a difference between holding a gun up and warning somebody versus, like, really leaning into it. I was like, all right, I’m going to show the world why she died. And I’m not going to let her death go in vain. Because I didn’t think that she deserved to die. She didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t have anything.

Babbitt was transported from the Capitol to MedStar Washington Hospital Center. The hospital notified DC Metro Police of the shooting victim. The DC Metro Police Department “Incident Summary Sheet” indicates that DC Metro Police was notified of the incident at 14:50. It lists the time of incident at 14:45.

DC Metro records indicate Byrd’s issued service pistol was initially secured by USCP-IAD, then taken as evidence by the DC Metro Department of Forensic Sciences. “This officer involved shooting is being investigated by the MPD IAD…”

The body was transported from the hospital to the Washington, D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (“OME”) at 17:57. Babbitt there became OCME Case #21-00106, the “unidentified White female from [Washington Hospital Center] who suffered GSW to chest.”

The autopsy was conducted January 7 by the OME and was attended by DC Metro-IAD. “The bullet was recovered and recovered as evidence by the Department of Forensic Sciences.”

The manner of death was ruled a “homicide” by OME.

The autopsy was not released by the OME due to privacy concerns. OME did not even release a redacted version (e.g., a number of pieces of paper showing a header with a black box over the content). Neither the autopsy, nor the Death Certificate, were released. I have not yet seen an indication that the attorney for Babbitt’s husband/estate has received it, either. Both Attorney Terrell Roberts (Roberts & Wood, and Judicial Watch have been vocal about fighting for what they recently released).

Babbitt’s identification was confirmed through her fingerprints on January 6 at 9:48 pm. Her name came back as “Ashli Elizabeth Pamatian,” a “35 y/o WF.”

On January 8, 2021, at 7:13 pm, a permit was requested for cremation of Babbitt’s body. Her body was released to Genesis Cremation and Funeral Services for this purpose on January 17, 2021.

A dozen people can look at the same records and focus on different things. For me, that Babbitt was shot at point blank range to her shoulder and died is tragic. 15 + 3 + 10 = 28 there. Fifteen officers fled the scene and failed to render aid to an unarmed woman with a single gunshot wound to the shoulder. We know it was “15” officers because while Babbitt lay wounded and dying, the USCP officers scurried away and then pulled together to “get a head count.” Those fifteen then went down to the basement to the Rayburn subway. In one officer’s words “we took off.”

The shooting interviews conducted by DC Metro are so poor as to defy logic. I would have done a better job as a high school senior debate team member is what I can say to get across to you the exceptionally poor quality of the interviews. Those interviews were crucial to an understanding of the only homicide on January 6. And the attitude of the interviewers communicates loud-and-clear that they couldn’t give a damn about what happened to Babbitt.

The only silver lining amidst those “interviews” is that the officers being interviewed rambled. Emerging from their raw spew is the chaos they faced as officers within a non-existent law enforcement structure. The officers didn’t know what to expect that day, but everyone was keyed up. Noise filled their ear pieces the afternoon of, but there was no plan, nor were their coherent executables. There was even confusion over whether officers heard the sound of a gun or glass breaking or both.

Where there was no confusion? Byrd’s appearance to fellow officers after he pulled the trigger: “red-eyed,” “shaking,” “sweating,” unfocused, unclear of what to do. Byrd flatly told another officer, “I was the one who took the shot.”

There were also consistent sworn interview responses that Babbitt had “nothing” in her hands at the time she was shot.

Ten individuals, surrounded, front-to-back, without realizing it. Eighteen officers, armed. One who fired without a command to do so, killing an unarmed American on U.S. soil. No signs on the building to stay away. Zero arrests made outside, inside, or anywhere on site to signal active law enforcement authorization. No clear directions from Sund’s command center to the officers on the ground.

And I remain haunted by the testimony of the post-January 6 Acting Chief of the United States Capitol Police Yoganada Pittman that the lockdown order for the Capitol “…was not properly executed…” and “…that officers were unsure of when to use lethal force…” Pittman made clear in her written testimony that USCP are providing “…guidance to officers since January 6th as to when lethal force may be used…” and that the department will “…implement significant training to refresh our officers as to the use of lethal force…”

What I laid out in my book only deepens with intensity the more I learn to fill in the minute-by-minute. And you wonder why I call myself a “2AM Patriot?”