WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal prosecutors will not charge a police officer who shot and killed a woman as she climbed through the broken part of a door during the U.S. Capitol insurgency on Jan. 6, the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday. Justice.
Authorities had been considering for months whether the criminal charges were appropriate for the Capitol police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt., a 35-year Air Force veteran from San Diego. The decision of the department, although expected, officially closes the investigation.
Prosecutors said they had reviewed the video of the shooting, along with statements from the officer involved and other officers and witnesses, examined the physical evidence at the site and reviewed the autopsy results.
“According to this investigation, officials determined that there is not enough evidence to support criminal prosecution,” the department said in a statement.
The video clips posted online depict Babbitt, who was carrying a backpack of stars and stripes, stepped up and began to pass through the waist-length opening of an area of the Capitol known as the speaker’s lobby when a shot is heard. He falls backwards. Another video shows other unidentified people trying to lift Babbitt. It can be seen falling to the ground again.
Mark Schamel, the officer’s attorney, a lieutenant whose Justice Department did not disclose his name, said the decision not to file charges was “the only correct conclusion” and that his client had “saved the lives of countless members of Congress “and riot police.”
Prosecutors said Babbitt was part of the crowd trying to enter the House, while Capitol police officers evacuated members of the House Congress. Officers used furniture to try to barricade the glass doors separating the hallway from the Orador lobby to try to avoid the riot police, who continued to try to open the doors, crushing the glass with flagpoles, helmets and other objects.
At the same time, Babbitt tried to climb through one of the doors where the glass was broken. A Capitol police officer inside the Orator lobby fired a single round from the service weapon and hit Babbitt in the shoulder, prosecutors said.
Schamel noted that the officer only fired one shot and did so only after “clearly identifying himself and ordering the crowd not to go through the barricade.”
“He used tremendous moderation just to fire a shot, and his actions prevented the mob from breaking in and turning a horrible day in American history into something much worse,” Schamel said.
He fell to the ground before a police tactical team rushed to the area and gave first aid. Babbitt was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Babbitt is one of five people killed in the riots, including a police officer. Three more people died in medical emergencies.
The Justice Department does not file criminal charges in most police cases it investigates in part because of the high prosecution burden. In this case no criminal charges were expected because the videos of the shooting show Babbitt entering a forbidden space and guessing an agent’s actions during the violent and chaotic day would have been a challenge.
Specifically, the investigation did not reveal any evidence to show 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 defense. of members of Congress and others evacuated the House of Representatives, “prosecutors said.