Babbit at the Gate

To understand the death of Ashli Babbit inside the US Capitol on January 6, you need to watch the video of the shooting. Quietly. On your own. At a computer screen bigger than your phone. You need to be prepared for your reaction, whatever it may be, including, “He chose her as his target and fired at point blank range with the intention to kill her.”

She was the shortest, fly weight in the group of perhaps a dozen men and women, wearing winter coats and hats, looking like they were at a football tailgate. There was movement among them, typical of the disorganized.

One man stepped forward and punched the glass in the door, which crackled, but didn’t give. The thick, wood door was equipped with safety glass. Others cursed. Some talked. One guy filmed.

There were three uniformed officers, standing silent, hands down, staring off into space, detached. The shorter of the three, in the middle, did flinch and blink when the punch to the glass passed his face and hit the safety glass, but he then resumed his stare. None of the three officers made eye contact or surveilled the scene or appeared situation aware and alert.

In choreographed unison, with no change of gaze or body language, the three uniformed officers move quietly stage right to reposition with their backs against the wall. The shortest of the three is taller than Babbit, who, like others in the group, is moving about in the width of the hallway without particular purpose.

It is then, from immediately inside the closed doors that a handgun appears, stage left, at the end of extended arms, in a two-handed grip.

A man in the group says, “There’s a gun! There’s a gun!”

His warning changes nothing. Even the man filming keeps filming. The handgun, the wrist, the white, button-down shirt cuff. Then, the fumbling of the shooter who has to release his left hand to fiddle with something - an incorrectly inserted magazine? - a safety left on? As he does so, the shooter’s body slips forward, out of the cover of the doorframe of the interior room from which he planned to shoot in obscurity. You see the handgun, the wrist, the shirt cuff, and now the suit sleeve, arm to shoulder, silhouette of a head. At no point in these seconds do his arms lower or his right hand grip falter.

The shooter has chosen his target, has set his intention, and he fires a single round, point blank, into his target, and he kills Ashli Babbit.

The shooter could have missed, and from that position, could easily have struck one of the uniformed officers behind Babbit.

The shooter could have caused a through-and-through, in Babbit’s front and out her back, and struck a uniformed officer.

Under Castle doctrine, the plane of the door had not been breached. It was not self-defense to shoot to kill. Equally, the entire length of the hallway to the left of the shooter was clear and available for his retreat. No one in the group displayed firearms or threatened the use of firearms, or has been alleged to have or been charged with firearms use or possession.

We will never know if Ashli Babbit, age 35, a USAF Veteran and recipient of the Iraqi Campaign Medal for service inside the borders of Iraq, was guilty of any crime on January 6. There will never be a grand jury indictment, charges, discovery, trial with DOJ burden of proof, nor appeals.

The shooter, the three uniformed officers, and what I am guessing to be the voice in their earpieces, made a collective decision to give and act upon orders to use lethal force to kill Ashli Babbit. They were the self-ordained judge, jury, and executioners. They deprived Ashli Babbit of her life, and her criminal rights under the Constitution. They treated Ashli Babbit worse than the enemy combatants held twenty years at Guantanamo Bay, still alive, today.

The United States Capitol Police on Monday officially stated the shooter was justified in his use of lethal force and will remain anonymous and no report of internal investigation will be released.

No ballistics report.

No forensics report.

No autopsy.

No internal investigation report.

No civil rights violation (per the DOJ last April).

The irony here? Ashli was a guardian of gates. Her active duty assignment? Gate security. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. Even after discharge, as a civilian: at a nuclear plant, state-side.

USCP, Secret Service, and DC Metro secrecy also deprive us of what might help us to understand the possibilities in Ashli’s mind. Did she hear the gun warning and, if so, did fourteen years of military training at gates have her focus on the threat to everyone around her, including the three, uniformed officers, that was presented by the shooter and did he lock on her because she locked on him in defense of others?

We have a right to know. Call your Congressman to demand the release of the USCP report. We, too, have a right to know.