Ashley Babbitt Family's Lawyer Terry Roberts Threatens to Sue Capitol Police
By: Jerry Lambe (Law Crime)
...and if that doesn't work, all her "Q" paraphernalia will be auctioned off at the next maga rally
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
An attorney representing the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was shot and killed during the Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol, said this week that he plans on filing a $10 million lawsuit against the U.S. Capitol Police and the lieutenant who fired the fatal shot.
Multiple videos from inside the Capitol Building show Babbitt amid a group of people crowded around a doorway in the lobby which separated a stair well from a hallway. Several law enforcement officers appeared to be guarding the hallway beyond the doors; others dressed as officers appeared to be among the mob in the stair well. The doorway windows were smashed, and the doors themselves were barricaded. Babbitt, wearing a red, white, and blue backpack and draped in a Trump flag, attempted to climb through one of the busted windows when a single shot was fired, killing her.
The Department of Justice two weeks ago declined to charge the officer, whose name has not been released to the public, finding that he may have believed self-defense was reasonably necessary to protect members of Congress inside the Speaker's Lobby.
But attorney Terrell N. Roberts, III has maintained that the footage from inside the building made it clear that Babbitt "did not pose a danger to the officer, or any other person when she was shot."
"A rookie police officer would not have shot this woman. If she committed any crime by going through the window and into the Speaker's Lobby, it would have been trespassing. Some misdemeanor crime. All a rookie cop would have done is arrest her," Roberts said in an interview with Zenger News.
"And he has plenty of other officers there to assist with arrest," he said of the shooter. "You had officers on Ashli's side of the door in riot gear and holding submachine guns. And on the other side of the door you have another uniformed officer 6 or 8 feet away. Whose life is he saving by shooting her? She's not brandishing a weapon. She's on the window ledge. And there's no reason to think she's armed."
Roberts also said that the lieutenant should be denied qualified immunity in any civil litigation. Qualified immunity is a controversial doctrine that prevents government officials from being personally liable for monetary damages without showing the official violated a statutory or constitutional right that was "clearly established" at the time.
"I don't know how on earth he could. This is a clear case of excessive force," Roberts said. "What it looks like is this guy shot this lady for no legitimate law enforcement purpose. And you know, they ought to be pretty ashamed of that. I mean, [it's] pretty, pretty bad, that you don't hear any member of Congress speaking out about this thing. In a free country like ours, it's very strange and odd that they wouldn't identify the officer, or even provide some details, explaining why he had to kill her."
But even if the courts were to agree that the officer used excessive force, the far harder task in overcoming qualified immunity would be showing that the officer's conduct violated Babbitt's "clearly established" right, which seems like a steep hill to climb given the historically unique circumstances of rioters invading the Capitol Building while lawmakers were inside.
A few weeks after the insurrection, the head of the Capitol Police officers' union said that approximately 140 officers were injured trying to protect members of Congress from rioters. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 400 people with an array of crimes varying from simple trespassing to assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon. The FBI is also still seeking help in identifying hundreds of more participants in the insurrection.
Law&Crime reached out to Roberts for more details on the lawsuit, which he told Zenger News he plans to file within the next 10 days.
[image via Ashli Babbitt/Twitter]
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Blood money for a damned traitor? Get outta here!
Was she still active duty?
I think the CP officer did what he felt he had to do
the CP officer read what was written on her maga hat and took the initiative.
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Screw that bitch. Once she became a seditious traitor, she got just what she deserved.
The Capital Police should counter sue.
Go for it, they will lose hard.
Actions have consequences. She would be alive today had she not taken part in trying to overthrow the US government because her messiah lied to her.
Terrell should watch the video. If there were three officers with submachineguns the outcome might have been very different.
Instead there were three officers, in varying degrees of disarray who were being beseech-ed to step aside,
that they were not the targets.
When the room beyond was pretty much empty of members of Congress, the three officers slid to one side, surrendering the door to the mob at 1:37 of the tape. Babbit is shot and goes down at 2:12 of the tape.
Two of the three officers try to render aid immediately.
Meanwhile coming up the nearby steps are 7 or 8 officers to rescue the first three officers and at least one has an AR style rifle
pointed at the crowd while another officer shouts at the crowd to disburse.
The tape ends...
Reminds me of a Philly shooting that was ruled "justified" in another breakin...
Reminds me of Rittenhouse who drove across state lines to, "defend himself". Might have been a lot easier had he just stayed home.
She broke through a locked door and tried to enter a protected area which was protecting the members of the US House of Representatives.
What is her case?
And if she had gotten through those doors, so would the mob that was behind her.
They don’t have one.
I can just imagine what the comments from conservatives would be if she had been a BLM supporter who had broken through a locked door and tried to enter a protected area which was protecting Donald Trump at the time. Every one of these comments defending her would be "F'ing bitch deserved what she got!" and "She should have obeyed the law if she didn't want to get shot!" and they'd be calling her family "disgusting leftists trying to cash in!".
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You're kidding, right? You're seriously comparing a participant in a violent insurrectionary mob with someone who may have (possibly unknowingly) passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a local corner store? Please.
false equivalency is the tie that binds the right
False equivalency with a strong dose of hypocrisy is their stock in trade.
Are you afraid of considering the comparison? That’s pretty telling.
What evidence do you have that this woman was violent?
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I’m not on the right, so your attempt at political bigotry is misplaced and irrelevant.
You don’t need to be on the Right to be willing to question any police shooting. Why do you fear an open inquiry?
Feel free to actually support your accusation of hypocrisy with evidence.
Ashley Babbit and the rest of them did not stumble into an area where there was a locked door with an armed guard on the other side. They were looking for that door as they marched through the building. In the videos of the scene you can see them asking where the doors were leading to the House and the Senate.
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Do these jeans make me look fat?
I can think of soooo many wrong answers.
off topic ?
Thread cleaned up.
oh ... you ... why ... me ...
they still count!
This woman's family will never get one freaking dime. I love what Trae Crowder had to say about Ashley Babbitt (and others) on January 7th:
Aw, you posted a video of my crush. Thanks!
Amazing. A black person dies by cop and the name and history of that cop [deleted] is the best kept secret in the history of this country.
Still making the same bullshit comment about the CP officer I see. The 'best kept secret' is WHY you think his name should be made public.
It’s not a secret at all. [deleted]