The Air Force veteran fatally shot by police during last week’s
US Capitol riot had been in a “throuple” with her husband and their
live-in girlfriend, according to reports.
Ashli Babbitt, 35, and her husband, Aaron Babbitt, 39, lived
with their 29-year-old gal pal Kayla Joyce in San Diego, New York
Magazine’s Intelligencer reported.
“I thought she was just going to a rally,” Joyce, who has known
the married couple for about a year, said of Ashli.
“It was extremely unlike her to put herself in that
position.”
During last Wednesday’s mayhem, Ashli was killed as she tried to
climb through a smashed window in a panel beside a barricaded
door in the Capitol building.
Joyce said she and Aaron found out about Ashli’s death “through
the news. Through live television.”
“I actually saw it first on video when I was on the phone with
multiple hospitals trying to find her,” she told the website.
Despite shacking up with Ashli and her husband, Joyce said she
didn’t follow her girlfriend on Twitter and didn’t know about her
fierce belief in QAnon conspiracy theories, the report said.
Two previously unreported video clips obtained by
The Washington Post shed new light on the fatal shooting by police
of Trump supporter and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt as she and
other rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Babbitt and others were attempting to breach a barricaded
door inside the Capitol building on Wednesday afternoon, angrily
demanding that three U.S. Capitol Police officers who were guarding
the door step aside, one of the clips shows. The officers moved
away as colleagues in tactical gear arrived behind the rioters,
according to the clip and other video posted online.
Roughly 35 seconds after the officers moved away, as she
climbed up toward a broken section of the unguarded door, Babbitt
was shot by an officer on the other side.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old California native, and more than a
dozen others appeared to be trying to get into the Speaker’s Lobby,
a hallway that would have given them access to the House of
Representatives chamber, according to a Post analysis of video
footage and plans of the Capitol.
A second clip, recorded approximately three minutes before
the shooting, appears to show lawmakers and officials in the
Speaker’s Lobby, just yards from Babbitt and others trying to get
through. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), the chairman of the
House Rules Committee, was one of those present, a spokesperson
confirmed.
As the lawmakers and officials were being evacuated, one
rioter wearing a fur-lined hat repeatedly punched the doorway’s
glass panels immediately behind the officers, creating extensive
damage, the video footage shows. The rioter tried to get around one
officer, identified by a patch on his jacket as K. Yetter, while
several rioters yelled at the police to let them through.
“We don’t want to hurt no one, we just want to go inside,”
one told them.
Another one yelled, “F— the blue!”
The Capitol Police did not respond to requests for comment.
Two of the officers could not be identified, and attempts to reach
Yetter were unsuccessful.
Babbitt, who was wearing a Trump flag as a cape, can be seen
in the video footage acting in an agitated manner and remonstrating
with officers. Her remarks to the police are not clearly
audible.
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At one point John Sullivan, a controversial self-described
liberal activist who shoots video at a range of protests and who
filmed the footage on Wednesday, is heard warning an officer that
additional rioters may be on their way. “We want you to go home,”
he said, according to the video. “I’m recording. And there’s so
many people. They’re gonna to push their way up here. Bro, I’ve
seen people out there get hurt. I don’t want to see you get
hurt.”
Sullivan provided the video to the The Post.
Another man, wearing a red Trump hat, told the officers, “We
backed you guys in the summer. When the whole country hated you, we
had your back.”
At this point, one officer guarding the door said to the
others, “They’re ready to roll,” and gestured to them to come with
him, the video shows. The officers stepped away from the door
together and moved to an adjacent wall.
With the door clear of law enforcement, some of the rioters
renewed their efforts to break through. One used a helmet, and
another tried with a flagpole.
About 20 seconds after the officers stepped aside, a loud
scream is heard on the footage. One man shouted three times that an
officer on the other side of the door had a gun. An officer with a
gun can be seen at the edge of the video’s frame. The warning was
repeated by another man, but other rioters continued trying to
smash through the doorway.
Around this time, the departing officers were met by
colleagues wearing helmets and armed with rifles, who had arrived
from a stairwell behind Babbitt and the rioters, according to other
video posted to social media. These officers began evacuating the
officers who had guarded the door down the stairs.
With help from someone who hoisted her up, Babbitt began to
step through a portion of the door where the glass had been broken
out. An officer on the other side, who was wearing a suit and a
surgical mask, immediately shot Babbitt in the neck. She fell to
the floor.
Moments later, the officers armed with rifles and the
officers who had guarded the door reemerged from the staircase
behind where Babbitt had fallen, according to other video posted
online. Some officers tended to Babbitt while others yelled at
rioters to clear the area so she could receive treatment.
Timothy McEntee, Babbitt’s ex-husband, told The Post
that his ex-wife owned a pool-cleaning business. “She’s a small
business owner in California and felt (much like others) that she
was being wronged,” McEntee wrote in a text message.
The Capitol Police announced Thursday that the officer who
shot Babbitt had been placed on