UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN
I don’t know why it caught me off guard, reading “UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN.”
But, it did.
I found the “UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN” some 1,102 pages into a review of records from the Washington, D.C. Office of the County Medical Examiner, relating to Ashli Babbitt, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch.
It was perhaps the literalness of her situation at that point in the day, and it’s not the first time that question has crossed my mind. Was there no one with Ashli on January 6 at the Capitol who knew her name? Did she have no – as in zero – identification on her person? I keep shaking my head because I find it so hard to believe that she had no wallet, no driver’s license, nothing, even though she boarded a plane in California and flew across the country to be in DC on the day. Assuming that Ashli Babbitt is the woman who went live on Facebook, walking down the DC street in this video, she was wearing a backpack – the same one she was wearing in the video in which she was shot.
For months I have wrestled with how Babbitt has been treated as an American. In my book, I remark at how public officials treated her during the early Congressional hearings. No one uttered her name in more than fifteen hours of testimony. You can read about it in more detail in my book.
The OCME records use the “unidentified woman at WHE” and assign her a case number by 4:03 pm on January 6 [p. 967, “WHE” being Washington Hospital Center]. “Unidentified Female” at 7:31 pm [p. 703]. Then, simply, at 7:42 pm, “Please run the attached prints” [p. 660, 702]. And, at 8:28 pm, a “Please see below updates regarding fingerprint status for the following cases,” including #21-00106, Babbitt’s OCME case number [p. 690].
The submission to the FBI CJIS with the prints calls Babbitt an “Unidentified Deceased” and comments “Please attempt to identify this unidentified female who was discovered deceased on 01/06/2021 in Washington, D.C.” [pp. 1110, 1113]. The FBI fingerprint card FD-249 has only the absolute minimal blanks filled in like “Description: Deceased,” “Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Suffix: Unidentified Female,” “Sex: F,” “Race: W” [pp. 1108-1109].
Most of the pages are redacted in full or in part, to a level comparable to the DHS FOIA releases on drone strikes under Presidents Bush and Obama. But, culling through the pages, you end up with January 6, 2021 at 4pm in-bound to OCME, a 7:42 pm fingerprint transmission, a response around 8:30 pm, chatter with additional information around 9:30 pm. A release of mode of death as “homicide” with cause of death as “gunshot wound to left anterior shoulder” on January 7, 2021. A notification of family by January 8, 2021 at 2:37 pm. And a request for cremation at 7:13 pm the same day of January 8, 2021, two days after her death.
The inner-office communication continues for months, thereafter, including on April 7, 2021 with a subject line “Information Requested on Cause and Manner of Deaths From January 6 Insurrection” [pp. 48-49].
As a result of my review of these records, I am sending off two FOIAs of my own for a couple highly specific clarifications. I’m also going to check in with Judicial Watch to learn whether they are challenging any of the redaction claims. {Side bar: did you know that the same cane be done? You can challenge redactions, which is about as much fun as weeding your parents’ yard, but can really net some true results. You have to go at each one in an itemized manner.}
I’ll keep you posted as I go. These records do, at least, provide some hard dates and times of events. Meanwhile, why don’t you plan to keep me posted if you see any organizations uploading FOIA responses in raw form? Kevin just called to say it’s being reported that USCP has been inundated with FOIAs since January 6.
Imagine that.
Keep up the good work.
