LIES LED TO HER DEATH
Zealot who bought Don’s delusions joined rioters & was shot in Capitol
Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt (right and inset) joined mob in disgraceful attack on U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and was shot dead. Three other demonstrators also died in the mayhem.
Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, a do-or-die believer in President Trump, gave her life for his lies.
Babbitt, an outspoken Trump supporter on social media, knew where she needed to be Wednesday morning: In the crowd outside the White House, raising her voice to support his desperate last-ditch bid to overturn the November election results that left him a one-term, lame-duck president.
“Nothing will stop us…. they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours…. dark to light,” the Trump supporter from San Diego tweeted Tuesday.
One day later, Babbitt, 35, was shot dead in D.C. — mortally wounded by a police officer’s bullet inside the U.S. Capitol as she joined rioters, fired up by Trump’s incendiary rhetoric at a “Save America Rally,” in storming the nation’s citadel of freedom.
Babbitt appeared an unlikely martyr for the president’s efforts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden. The 35-year-old married woman was a decorated 14-year military hero, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Air Force and pulling tours in Kuwait and Qatar with the National Guard.
Yet Babbitt fully embraced the president’s right-wing politics on social media, criticizing Democratic politicians like New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and his California counterpart Sen. Kamala Harris, while supporting discredited conspiracy theorist Lin Wood and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Other tweets indicated her support of QAnon, the group known for spinning bogus conspiracy theories, and one featured her wearing a “We are Q” shirt.
Her Twitter handle was “CommonAshSense,” and her last retweets included plugs for the Wednesday rally in Washington and a “stop the steal” message, along with remarks from Donald Trump Jr. and recently-pardoned Gen. Michael Flynn.
Babbitt, who lived 15 minutes from the Tijuana border, posted videos where she offered support for Trump’s Mexican wall and ripped politicians for their inaction on the project.
“Everybody wants immigration, but we need to do it in the right and correct way,” she declared, her voice rising, in one of several video clips posted online. “This is getting out of control. I am so tired of this. I am woke, man!”
In another, she complained about the lax security at the Mexican border and blasted the media for spreading lies about the people seeking to enter the United States.
“The border is an absolute s—show,” she declared in the clip.
Her ex-husband of 14 years, Timothy McEntee, recalled Babbitt as a patriot who “loved America with all her heart.”
Another three out-of-town protesters died during the wild afternoon from what police termed “medical emergencies:” Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Ala.; Benjamin Philips, 50, of Ringtown, Pa.; and Roseanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Ga.
Boyland prepped for the
disastrous Trump event by sharing internet conspiracy theories about New York City first lady Chirlane McCray and offering tips to other folks planning to attend the gathering. Her sisters, speaking with Atlanta television station WXIA, recalled her as a “really happy, wonderful person.” Police did not provide a cause for the young woman’s demise.
Greeson’s son, in a Facebook post, said his father suffered a fatal heart attack in Washington.
“We all loved him so much,” wrote Kyler Greeson on Thursday. “He made me the man I am today ... He was such a great man, we all miss you so much.”
Phillips’ ex-wife Nicole Mun told the Daily News that they had a pair of teen-age daughters from a five-year marriage that ended in 2004. She declined to say anything more, noting “my children are grieving and processing [Wednesday’s] shocking events.” The was no word on his cause of death from police.
Babbitt, before moving to southern California, ran into some recent legal issues while living in Huntington, Md. Court documents indicate she was cleared in 2016 on charges of damaging another woman’s car. She faced additional misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and destruction of property the same year, while she was served with a restraining order the next year.
The resolution of those charges was unclear.
She remarried last year after her divorce, finding love a second time and running a small California pool service and supply business with her new husband. And then she headed east for the last time, joining her fellow MAGA believers for the rally turned riot.
When Babbitt was shot, the rioters — some of them armed — were nearing the chamber where members of Congress sought refuge from the rampant insanity, authorities said Thursday.
“Ashli was both loyal as well as extremely passionate about what she believed in,” her brother-in-law Justin Jackson told San Diego-based KNSD-TV. “She loved this country and felt honored to have served in our Armed Forces.”