Video reveals Babbitt blasted Capitol Police for not calling in backup
The video was filmed just moments
before Babbitt, 35, was shot and killed on Jan. 6, 2021.
Confronting the police officers
guarding the doors to the Speaker’s Lobby at the U.S. Capitol, Babbitt is seen
blasting them for doing nothing while rioters proceeded to smash windows, an
analysis shows.
The analysis of the journalist’s
video comes on the heels of recent disclosures that Babbitt tried at least four
other times to stop the assault on the Speaker’s Lobby.
It shows her desperation when the
rioters were left unchecked.
The video even shows someone
smashing a window just inches from a police officer’s head.
Ashli Babbitt is seen growing
frustrated as police officers ignore the rioters
In the video—shot by independent
journalist Tayler Hansen—Babbitt is seen trailing rioter Zachary Alam,
attempting to get between him and one of three police officers at the Speaker’s
Lobby double doors.
Alam, who was arrested by the FBI on
Jan. 30, 2021, bashes the window in the double doors twice.
The first time, he grabs one police
officer’s shoulder with his left hand, then punches between him and another
officer, striking the window, the video shows.
“Chill out! Chill the [expletive]
out, bro!” someone shouts. “Hey! Chill
out!”
“These guys work for us!” someone in the crowd interjects.
“You gonna shoot him?” another person asks.
A bearded man in a red Trump cap
complains that they are not being allowed into the Speaker’s Lobby.
"Mother [expletive]! We don’t
want to hurt nobody.
"We just want to go in the
House.”
Babbitt tries to get in between Alam
and one of the officers.
Ashli Babbitt confronted
police officers for not stopping rioters pic.twitter.com/WfBeut82yT
— Parker (@ucorio) January 19, 2022
She says something to Alam, but he
brushes her off.
Alam then cranks up his right arm
and punches the window next to the officer.
Within a few seconds, Babbitt blows
up at the officers for allowing the violence and vandalism.
"Call [expletive] help!” Babbitt shouts, jumping up and down in front of the
officers.
"We’re allowed to be here!”
Babbitt takes a couple of steps
back.
There was no visible reaction from
the officers, sparking her anger.
"You’re a fraud!” she shouts.
"You’re a [expletive] fraud!
You’re wrong!”
After walking away, Babbitt can be
heard screaming just off-camera: “Take it down!”
Hansen said he believes she meant
for the crowd to calm down.
"You could tell that she was
definitely getting upset,” Hansen
said.
"She was calm when she first
got there.
"Then as the destruction
continued and as more people started to fill in and it got more dangerous,
that’s when you can tell she was getting really upset.”
Babbitt served as a police officer
in the U.S. Air Force during her 14 years of military service.
Her husband, Aaron, said her law
enforcement experience likely told her something was wrong.
"I believe she saw their
inaction as odd or off, and was ultimately confused as to what was happening,” Aaron Babbitt told The Epoch Times.
"She was a take-charge kind of
person.
"Her frustrations show that the
cops who should’ve been taking charge—weren’t.”
"I’d only seen bits and pieces
and never fully put together,”
Aaron Babbitt said of the video.
"I can hear the confused panic
in her voice.”
He said the video makes him sad
since his role as a husband is to protect his wife.
He stayed in San Diego to run the
couple’s small business while Ashli attended the Trump rally in Washington.
She was trapped in the hallway, and
claustrophobic.
"She had no friends in that
room,” Babbitt said.
"I always go back to no one
would’ve ever watched out for (her) like I always did. Very helpless.”
Babbitt said he hopes the video
analysis gives the public a better understanding of the chaos in the hallway.
"I’ve known something was off
with the whole situation from day one,”
Babbitt said.
"Hopefully this gives other
people a different perspective—or at a minimum makes someone take a second look
with a different mindset.”
"What I think it was from
reviewing the footage and just from knowing what I know about Ashli from the
family, is she probably got claustrophobic,”
Hansen said, “because more people and more people kept pouring in and she
realized she was in a bad situation.
"So then she pushed her way
over to the window area.
"Once that window broke, I
think she realized this was going to be bad for the people inside if they were
actually able to breach these doors entirely,” Hansen said.
"I think she wanted to be the
first one through that window so she could kind of safeguard it, honestly.
"If she can get to the other
side of the window where officers are, in her mind she would be safe.”
Hansen said he just discovered an
Instagram live-stream video he shot on Jan. 6 that shows Babbitt as she first
turned the corner into the Speaker’s Lobby hallway.
He said that Babbitt was friendly
with the police officers when she first approached the doors.
"Ashli just walks right up to
them and just seems super happy; doesn’t know what she’s about to walk into.
"She was joking with the cops
right before Byrd put a bullet into her.”
Hansen said he first encountered
Ashli in the Capitol Rotunda as she entered the building by herself.
He next saw her as he emerged from a
room with George Washington’s portrait on the wall, then followed her to the
Speaker’s Lobby hallway.
They were the first two to reach the
double doors.
"It shows her and me just
walking right up to the door with Officer Yetter and all the other cops and she
starts talking to them.”
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