New Report Raises More Questions About Ashli Babbitt Shooting
There have been a lot of questions about the shooting of Ashli Babbitt on January 6 during the Capitol riot. A finding by the Department of Justice that they would not be pursuing action against Lt. Michael Byrd — the officer who shot her — did not quell those questions.
There is now a new report that is likely to spark even more concerns.
According to a report from Real Clear Investigations, no one ever interviewed Byrd before the decision was made not to pursue any charges against him, the attorney for the Babbitt family, Terry Roberts said.
“He didn’t provide any statement to [criminal] investigators and they didn’t push him to make a statement,” Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts said in an RCI interview. “It’s astonishing how skimpy his investigative file is.”
Roberts, who has spoken with the D.C. MPD detective assigned to the case, said the kid-glove treatment of Byrd raises suspicions the investigation was a “whitewash.”
The lawyer’s account appears to be backed up by a January 2021 internal affairs report, which notes Byrd “declined to provide a statement,” D.C. MPD documents show.
Asked about it, a D.C. MPD spokeswoman confirmed that Byrd did not cooperate with internal affairs agents or FBI agents, who jointly investigated what was one of the most high-profile officer-involved shooting cases in U.S. history.
This report comes
on top of the questions about Babbitt being unarmed and not physically threatening anyone before she was shot. During an interview that Byrd gave to NBC’s Lester Holt after the DOJ decision, Byrd said that he couldn’t see her hands but that even if he knew she was unarmed that
wouldn’t have changed his reaction. That’s an incredible statement given that she hadn’t physically posed a threat to him or to any of the officers to whom she was just standing near.
New Report Raises More Questions About Ashli Babbitt Shooting