More than 500 pages of internal documents from DC Metropolitan Police concerning the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol on Jan. 6 reveal witness accounts stating she was not holding a weapon at the time of her death and how “upset” the officer was after shooting her.

“These previously secret records show there was no good reason to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt,” stated Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which obtained the documents through a May 2021 FOIA lawsuit…

View Comments (1)

Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was shot and killed during the storming of the Capitol by a bullet fired by Capitol Police officer ​​Lt. Michael Byrd…

A Capitol Police sergeant, whose name is redacted, described seeing Babbitt climbing through a broken window, but did not witness her holding a weapon, according to a portion of the documents received by Judicial Watch.

“Sergeant [redacted] observed a white, female protester was climbing through an opened area where the glass pane had been knocked out. He heard a gunshot and this female fell backwards through the opening…Sergeant [redacted] observed Lieutenant Byrd step back just after hearing the gunshot. He did not see anything in the female protester’s hands prior to the gunshot,” the Internal Affairs Division report stated…

Judicial Watch noted that in a written transcript of the interview with the sergeant, he detailed he was not sure “if something happened to” Byrd that “caused him to take the shot or not.”…

The sergeant went onto describe that Byrd was “visibly upset” after shooting Babbitt…

The interviewer asked the sergeant if he approached Babbitt after the shot, and he responded, “No, no, no. I maintained my position.”…

The interview asked the sergeant if Jan. 6 was  a “frightening experience,” to which the sergeant responded: “Oh yeah. I’m not afraid to say I was, I was scared s–t.”

The Internal Affairs Division also conducted a different interview with another Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6, who was positioned directly behind Byrd in the Speaker’s Lobby during the shooting of Babbitt.

“He did not see Ms. McEntee [Babbitt] in possession of any potential weapons,” the summary report states.

“He reiterated that he did not observe that she was armed.”

That interviewee also described Byrd as “upset” following the shooting…

Another report on an interview with a Capitol Police officer on Feb. 4 stated, “He did not hear any verbal commands” before Babbitt was shot.

A separate Jan. 6 phone interview with a man who “reached out” to the Metro PD, who claimed to have been in the House Chambers at the time of the shooting, contradicted the officer’s Feb. 4 interview.

He said he did in fact hear Byrd shout “loud verbal commands” that he would “shoot” before firing at Babbitt. That interviewee also claimed Byrd fired twice, not once…

“He [Byrd], uh, did everything he could do…. He was by himself, we were defending the front door and they were shaking it.”…

The documents come after Byrd gave his first public interview in August, recounting the events leading up to the shooting, and said firing his weapon was a “last resort option.”

“I tried to wait as long as I could,” Byrd said. “I hoped and prayed no one tried to enter through those doors. But their failure to comply required me to take the appropriate action to save the lives of members of Congress and myself and my fellow officers.”

The U.S. Capitol Police concluded its internal investigation seven months after the shooting and declared it was “lawful and within Department policy.” The policy states that the officer can use deadly force if he “reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life.”

“If the doors were breached, the rioters would have immediate access to the House Chambers,” the U.S. Capitol Police said on August 23. “The actions of the officer in this case potentially saved Members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters…”…

Share a prayer in the comments below for Lt. Michael Byrd and for Ms. Babbitt’s family.

(Excerpt from Fox News. Article by Emma Colton. Photo Credit: Brent Stirton/Getty Images).