(READ) Prosecutors decline to charge police officer who shot and killed unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt, at Capitol riots


  • Officials say they found no evidence that the officer, whose name they still will not release, violated criminal laws and did not fear for his life or the safety of others.
  • Prosecutors say: “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.”

Read the full statement below.

Department of Justice Closes Investigation into the Death of Ashli Babbitt

            WASHINGTON – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice will not pursue criminal charges against the U.S. Capitol Police officer involved in the fatal shooting of 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt, the Office announced today.

            The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and the Civil Rights Division, with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD), conducted a thorough investigation of Ms. Babbitt’s shooting.  Officials 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.  Based on that investigation, officials determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution.  Officials from IAD informed a representative of Ms. Babbitt’s family today of this determination.

            The investigation determined that, on January 6, 2021, Ms. Babbitt joined a crowd of people that gathered on the U.S. Capitol grounds to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election.  Inside the Capitol building, a Joint Session of Congress, convened to certify the results of the Electoral College vote, was underway.  Members of the crowd outside the building, which was closed to the public during the Joint Session, eventually forced their way into the Capitol building and past U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) officers attempting to maintain order.  The Joint Session was stopped, and the USCP began evacuating members of Congress.

            The investigation further 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.  At the time, the USCP was evacuating Members from the Chamber, which the mob was trying to enter from multiple doorways.  USCP officers 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.  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.  Eventually, the three USCP officers positioned outside the doors were forced to evacuate.  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.  An officer inside the Speaker’s Lobby 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.  A USCP emergency response team, which had begun making its way into the hallway to try and subdue the mob, administered aid to Ms. Babbitt, who was transported to Washington Hospital Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.

            The focus of the criminal investigation was to determine whether federal prosecutors could prove that the officer violated any federal laws, concentrating on the possible application of 18 U.S.C. § 242, a federal criminal civil rights statute.  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.  Prosecutors would have to prove not only that the officer used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that the officer did so “willfully,” which the Supreme Court has interpreted to mean that the officer acted with a bad purpose to disregard the law.  As this requirement has been interpreted by the courts, evidence that an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent required under Section 242.

            The investigation revealed no evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer willfully committed a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242.  Specifically, 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.  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.


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19 thoughts on “(READ) Prosecutors decline to charge police officer who shot and killed unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt, at Capitol riots”

  1. Another example of the double standard of justice. If that had been a white cop and black protestor the white cop would be prosecuted smeared all over the MSM and eventually jailed.

    1. Right…..because European-Americans are scared to say, address “Loxism.” White harassment and extermination are written in their Talmud.

  2. I find it so sad that as riots are continuing because of someone being shot by a police officer in Mn.this comes out as a “fair” decision. While in many cases of police shootings the victims are in possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and usually a long list of indictments or prison time this woman was unarmed and a veteran with no criminal history.
    I also wonder why this officer didn’t keep his head and fire a shot in the air. Surely in that building it would have been tremendously loud and stopped many in their tracks
    I’m so sorry but it rings true that there is justice for some but not for all

    1. Just as a point of information, warning shots are not a thing done in real life. No doubt the officer other options, but a warning shot was not one of them.

    2. You do not EVER “fire a shot in the air”. For one, they were inside a building, and you’re going to hit something. Even outside, that bullet has to come down somewhere, and I have seen video of a man who died where he stood when he was hit by a bullet that had been shot up into the air. While the similarity between this incident and the many police-vs-unarmed-black-man incidents is striking, Ashli Babbitt was, in fact, in the process of committing a crime by violently breaking into a federal government building, which would reasonably cause those inside to fear for their safety. They didn’t know she was unarmed. They didn’t know she had no criminal history. All they knew was that people outside were trying to break in, and she was about to succeed and gain entry. She is accountable for her own actions, and that one cost her dearly.

      1. My apologies, I was replying to Zoie before reading your comment or I would have save myself the effort.
        I had read Marlene’s comment.

    3. Where does that shot fired into the air end up? What goes up, comes down, The only question is comes down on whose head?
      In a building like that, the question is how many times it ricochets before striking a person?

  3. One can only wonder if there is such a thing as justice, in this Nation.
    While we don’t know the identity of the officer that took Ashli’s life, we certainly do know the identity of the officer that mistakenly took the life of the 20yr old in Minnesota. Her personal information has been spread across the net. Her family, their personal information, and address.
    I fail to see any justice, what I do see is racism! One can only wonder what would have been the case if Ashli’s skin was of another color. Yet the riots unfold again in Minnesota as well as in other cancel culture, Woke society cities.
    Meanwhile we have people in government calling for defunding the police, no incarceration for breaking the law, and a flood of illegal immigration supported by the Biden administration. 22 can’t come soon enough, and when it does, don’t expect unity, you have yet to show it.

  4. Since when does, “Officials say they found no evidence that the officer, whose name they still will not release, …did not fear for his life or the safety of others.” justify the officer’s use of lethal force? This is a complete travesty of justice.

  5. “The investigation revealed no evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt ”

    Can the Babbit family take it to a court to seek to punish the officer involved, or other officers that were part of the big picture leading to this situation?

    I believe this shot was the only one inside the Capitol. People believed it was the Q people who were shooting. Well they were at the receiving end.

    “Specifically, 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”

    This so nicely confirms what is wrong with the United States. The problem is not only the police shooting people, it is the arbitrary assumption of innocence after a killing. He should have known the woman possibly dies, it was in reckless disregard of her life. He should have been able to use lesser means. Babbit didn’t earn the death penalty by going at the window that somebody had broken, to use left’s wording.

    It is like the prosecutor is the judge that frees the defendant, or decides to prosecute to the fullest extent, which gives a lot of room for misconduct.

    Sadly, both right and left in the US support ultimately the idea that some people may sometimes kill others and it is not necessary to take it to the court, but at the same time they advocate for really heavy punishments for those who are found guilty of anything.

    The line between not getting prosecuted or getting 20 years in prison by court decision is far too much a line drawn to sand. I suggest policemen should be prosecuted for killing people in the way Ashli Babbit was killed, but that the punished doesn’t always need to be ‘max 60 years’ in prison.

    If there is one thing to change, it is to make prosecutor’s accountable.

  6. Why not a grand jury, they would indict a ham sandwich, another manipulation of justice, like you were a victim of, where is the outcry, there was no logical explanation for that murder, if there was than a blood bath should have happened!

  7. No surprise. The deceased was white, so there was no requirement for outrage that would apply to an unarmed person from a minority group being shot dead by government LE.
    There was a shooting of an unarmed white person by police the other night- national mainstream media did not even cover it.
    And, the media ignores the fact that the deceased in the most recent shooting in Brooklyn had a warrant out for his arrest for failure to appear at a hearing to review charges of assault and improper use of a handgun.

  8. This shooting was ruled a homicide—or, more bluntly, a murder—yet the perpetrator is unnamed and uncharged. There is no longer a functioning justice system in this country.

  9. Nobody is going to defend a white woman in this country. The intelligence community in Monterey is having a fun time with That idea. This was obviously cold blooded murder. The officer doesn’t even have to be revealed. Yay for the DOJ!

  10. After months of supposedly “investigation” we are left asking: WHO SHOT ASHLI BABBIT AND WHY DID HE DO SO????

  11. I believe the officer should at least have been charged with negligent homicide.
    However, we now live in a country where justice is only rendered to the people who make the most noise.

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