Ashli Babbit, January 6th, and A Missed Opportunity

I was recently involved in a discussion on LinkedIn regarding this article: https://policelawnews.substack.com/p/the-babbitt-standard?r=1pk12p

I thought that the author made some good points in the article. For the TLDR crowd, his main argument is that standards need to be applied fairly across the board. Any time that standards are modified for someone’s perceived special status (race, ethnicity, gender, etc) it diminishes faith in the system. Faith in our system of justice is important for a cohesive society.

With the recent release of 40,000 hours of video to Fox News this shooting is once again on the minds of many. There are two camps. Camp 1 says that Ashli Babbit should have complied and surrendered, often implying, or stating that she deserved to be shot. Camp 2 says that Capitol Police Lieutenant Byrd murdered her in cold blood. Neither one of those camps considers the reality of Use of Force law, the chaos of the situation, and the level of government officials in harm’s way at the time. The article linked below does a great job of discussing the shooting and the legal questions circulating around it: https://www.lawfareblog.com/evaluating-police-shooting-ashli-babbitt

I really wrote a great blog piece and then was doing a little more research when I came across this Lawfare article. They wrote it two years ago and it still says everything that needs saying. I don’t think anything more has come out.

Having been a Secret Service Agent for over 20 years I don’t believe for a second that Lt Byrd gave any thought to the race or politics of Babbitt. Except in so far as her politics lead her to make the decision to go through that barricade. I have protected political leaders from all over the world. It is the mission, not the person. Lt Byrd stated as much in his CNN interview. But, I agree with the authors at Lawfare, this is not a cut and dry officer involved shooting. It is a missed opportunity for the courts to clearly delineate where the interests of the government and interests of Civil Rights intersect. It would provide much better guidance for future officer and agents as these types of reactions to political losses continue.