Federal prosecutors investigated the officer and other witnesses, looked into Ashli Babbitt’s autopsy report and social media video clips, and acquired evidence at the site.
According to a statement released by the Justice Department announcing the conclusion of its investigation, “officials found that there is insufficient evidence to justify a criminal charge.”
Investigators concluded that the officer, a lieutenant who officials have not publicly identified, was serving as a final line of defence between rioters and members of Congress and should not be charged with any crimes, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Ashli Babbitt, who spent over a decade in the Air Force and Air National Guard, developed a fierce devotion to the late president Donald Trump.
One of the five people who perished on January 6, 2021, during the Capitol riots in Washington, D.C., was Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.
The events on that day shocked the country and made many people doubt the health of the democratic system in the United States.
A U.S. Capitol Police officer shot and killed Babbitt as she attempted to enter the Speaker’s Lobby through a barred door that had a cracked window.
Police were removing lawmakers from the mob that was allegedly backing Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election had been rigged at the time.
Some have argued that the police officer who shot Babbitt used excessive force, which has raised controversy about her death.
On March 7, Babbitt was said to be still alive in an Instagram post. The video in the tweet showed individuals, including a woman, donning a red “Make America Great Again” cap.
The article was identified as a component of Facebook’s effort to thwart bogus information on its news feed.
Seeing the headlines running at the bottom of the clip led to the discovery that the video’s footage of the soul was taken from a speech delivered by former President Donald Trump on October 1, 2022.
Her devastated husband spoke to reporters about her death, and news organisations released video that showed the incident.
As part of a Justice Department investigation into Babbitt’s death, representatives from the Public Corruption and Department’s Internal Affairs Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia examined a video clip, police and witness statements, physical evidence from the gunfire scene, and Babbitt’s autopsy results.
After reviewing the available evidence, the Justice Department declared on Wednesday, October 26, that no federal criminal charges would be brought against the police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt on January 6 during the incident at the U.S. Capitol.
Federal prosecutors must prove both that an officer knowingly violated someone’s constitutional rights and that the officer used excessive force when assessing such instances.
Federal charges against an officer are difficult to bring because of this high threshold, and legal experts had projected that it was unlikely that a case would arise over Ms. Babbitt’s death.
Conspiracy theories are still floating online in relation to Ashli Babbitt’s death.
The Justice Department’s most recent investigations, though, concluded that there isn’t any proof to back this up.
