The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it will not pursue charges against the U.S. Capitol Police officer who fatally shot 35-year-old Air Force veteran and Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, determining there was “insufficient evidence” to support a criminal prosecution.
The Justice Department said that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division “conducted a thorough investigation.” After investigators “examined video footage posted on social media, statements from the officer involved and other officers and witnesses to the events, physical evidence from the scene of the shooting, and the results of an autopsy,” the officials “determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution.” Members of MPD’s internal affairs “informed a representative of Ms. Babbitt’s family today of this determination.”
Last week, Dr. Francisco Diaz, the chief medical examiner for the District of Columbia, determined that Babbitt’s death was caused by a “gunshot wound to the left anterior shoulder,” and her manner of death was ruled a “homicide.” Not all homicides are determined to be unjustified or to be murders. A video shows Babbitt attempting to climb through a window into the Speaker’s lobby during the storming of the Capitol, when she was shot and killed by a yet-unidentified police officer.
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The announcement about no charges being filed against the officer who killed Babbitt came the same day that it was revealed that Kimberly Potter, the officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright on Sunday, would be charged with second-degree manslaughter.
The Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office also said last week that “the cause and manner of death for Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick are pending” three months after he died. The Capitol Police announced Sicknick, a 42-year-old who joined the agency in 2008, died on Jan. 7, one day after rioters broke into the Capitol as lawmakers counted electoral votes to affirm now-President Joe Biden‘s victory over former President Donald Trump.
The DOJ said Wednesday that “the focus of the criminal investigation” related to Babbitt’s shooting “was to determine whether federal prosecutors could prove that the officer violated any federal laws” and concentrated on a federal criminal statute governing the potential deprivation of civil rights, saying that “in order to establish a violation of this statute, prosecutors must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the officer acted willfully to deprive Ms. Babbitt of a right protected by the Constitution or other law, here the Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to an unreasonable seizure.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the investigation “revealed no evidence to establish that, at the time the officer fired a single shot at Ms. Babbitt, the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self defense or in defense of the Members of Congress and others evacuating the House Chamber” and so “acknowledging the tragic loss of life and offering condolences to Ms. Babbitt’s family, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and U.S. Department of Justice have therefore closed the investigation into this matter.”
The Justice Department argued that its investigation “determined that Ms. Babbitt was among a mob of people that entered the Capitol building and gained access to a hallway outside Speaker’s Lobby, which leads to the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives” and that at the time, Capitol Police were “evacuating Members from the Chamber, which the mob was trying to enter from multiple doorways.” Police “used furniture to barricade a set of glass doors separating the hallway and Speaker’s Lobby to try and stop the mob from entering the Speaker’s Lobby and the Chamber, and three officers positioned themselves between the doors and the mob” while “members of the mob attempted to break through the doors by striking them and breaking the glass with their hands, flagpoles, helmets, and other objects.”
Numerous members of the crowd surrounding Babbitt at that time have been charged by prosecutors.
The three Capitol Police officers positioned outside the doors “were forced to evacuate” and “as members of the mob continued to strike the glass doors, Ms. Babbitt attempted to climb through one of the doors where glass was broken out.”
Video shows the Capitol Police officer wearing a face mask and with his gun drawn inside the Speaker’s lobby as Babbitt, wearing a Trump flag like a cape, attempted to clamber through the broken door. It was then that the Justice Department says the officer “fired one round from his service pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, causing her to fall back from the doorway and onto the floor,” and a Capitol Police emergency response team then “administered aid to Ms. Babbitt, who was transported to Washington Hospital Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.”
John Sullivan, a self-styled leftist activist who has been disavowed by Black Lives Matter leaders, shot a graphic video of Babbitt’s death inside the Capitol. Sullivan, the founder of Insurgence USA, was indicted in early February for a host of crimes tied to the Capitol riot, including felonies related to obstruction of Congress, and can be seen on video following and encouraging Trump supporters from the entrance of the Capitol all the way to the moment when Babbitt was killed. He was paid tens of thousands of dollars by major media outlets that wanted to use his video footage.
The day before she was killed, Babbitt tweeted, “Nothing will stop us… they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours… dark to light!”
Mark Schamel, an attorney for the officer who shot Babbitt, claimed in February, “There’s no way to look at the evidence and think he’s anything but a hero.”
Terrell Roberts, an attorney representing Babbitt’s family, rejected the Justice Department’s decision in a lengthy statement to the Washington Examiner.
“Today the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia announced that it will not pursue criminal charges against the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt in our Nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021,” he said.
“A press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office declared that ‘[t]he investigation revealed no evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer willfully committed a violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 242.’ The press release went on to say in the next sentence: ‘Specifically, the investigation revealed no evidence to establish that, at the time the officer fired a single shot Ms. Babbitt, the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self-defense or in the defense of the Members of Congress and others evacuating the House Chamber,” Roberts added.
“This double-negative is an odd way of explaining the basis for not bringing charges. It plainly glosses over the obvious problem of squaring the decision not to prosecute with the known facts. The actual evidence is this: the officer shot an unarmed woman who was not an immediate threat to him or any Member of Congress. That is inconsistent with any claim of self-defense or the defense of others, period. To kill Ashli Babbitt in the way it was done demonstrates the requisite degree of willfullness to support a prosecution under the civil rights statute previously referred to,” Roberts said, adding in conclusion: “We strongly disagree with the U.S. Attorney’s decision. But we are not dissuaded from our goal of ultimately vindicating Ashli Babbitt’s constitutional rights in the civil arena.”
Besides Babbitt, three others died on Jan. 6. According to the medical examiner, both 55-year-old Kevin Greeson and 50-year-old Benjamin Phillips were determined to have died from “hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” a heart problem, and the manner of death was deemed “natural.” The case of death for 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland was “acute amphetamine intoxication,” drug use, and the death was “accidental.”
Former U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said in January that “specialized teams” were investigating the deaths of Sicknick and Babbitt.
“Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries,” the Capitol Police said in January. No murder charges have been filed, and it is unclear if any will be.
FBI Director Christopher Wray repeatedly declined to provide details related to the death of Sicknick during Senate testimony in March.
Julian Elie Khater and George Pierre Tanios were charged in March with assaulting Sicknick and two other officers with a chemical spray, although the men were not accused of murdering Sicknick.
Sicknick received the rare tribute of lying in honor in the Capitol rotunda, where his casket was visited by Biden, and Sicknick’s cremated remains were sent to Arlington National Cemetery. Capitol Police officer William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force, was killed in a car-ramming attack by self-described “follower of Farrakhan” Noah Green on April 2, and he was also honored in a Capitol rotunda ceremony this week.
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The identity of the person who planted pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee the night before the Capitol riot also remains unknown.
