Slain rioter’s previous troubles
New video of shooting
The Air Force veteran killed during Wednesday’s siege of the Capitol had a history of conspiracy-theory postings and runins with cops, it emerged on Thursday — as newly found videos revealed the moment she was shot dead by police. Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego, “was never afraid to speak her mind,” her exhusband, Timothy McEntee, told The Washington Post, describing his wife of 14 years as “very loud and opinionated, but caring, sweet, thoughtful, loving.” The two lived in Maryland in 2016 when Babbitt (left) was accused but found not guilty of reckless endangerment, malicious destruction of property and tampering with a car, court records in Calvert County show.
The records gave no additional detail. Babbitt had served in the Air Force for 14 years, including in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was also deployed with the National Guard to Kuwait and Qatar, McEntee said, adding that they had met in the Air Force.
Babbitt was living with her new husband, Aaron Babbitt, in San Diego, the ex said.
Aaron, who had run a pool-servicing company with his wife, told a local TV station that she was a “high-level security official” while in the Air Force and that she died an ardent Trump supporter.
“The storm is here, and it is descending upon DC,” she had tweeted a day before the protest — one of several posts on Babbitt’s social media citing the extremist QAnon conspiracy movement.
The tweet was an apparent reference to “The Storm,” the day when Trump is supposed to uncover a satanic cabal of pedophiles and bring salva
tion, according to the bizarre QAnon theory.
Cellphone videos from inside the Capitol show Babbitt among a mob of shouting Trump supporters who were trying to push past a barricaded door and into the House chambers.
Through the door’s shattered windows, a single lawman can be seen, his gun raised and trained on the horde outside.
“Bust it down!” one man yells from the crowd.
Babbitt is shot as she tries to climb through one of the door’s smashed-in windows. She falls back instantly.
She was rushed to the hospital, where she died.
The shooting remains under investigation, DC police said.
A congressman who witnessed the shooting insisted that the unidentified Capitol police lieutenant who had shot Babbitt had “no choice.”
The [Capitol Police] lieutenant that was there — him and I already had multiple conversations prior to this — and he didn’t have a choice at the time,” Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told “Good Morning America” Thursday morning.
“The mob was going to come through the door, and there was a lot of [House] members and staff that were in danger at the time,” he added.
“And when he [drew] his weapon, that’s a decision that’s very hard for anyone to make and, once you draw your weapon like that, you have to defend yourself with deadly force.”