Capitol Police Officer Michael Bryd Interviewed About Shooting Death of Ashli Babbitt
Ashli Babbitt moments before her fatal shooting as she tried to breech the Speaker’s Lobby during the January 6th Capitol Riot
Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt during the January 6th riot spoke out publicly in an interview with NBC. Babbit died from her injuries and the video of the shooting has been a controversy ever since, though Byrd was cleared officially of any wrongdoing.
As rioters rampaged through the Capitol, Byrd and a few other officers of the U.S. Capitol Police set up a wall of furniture outside the doors.
“Once we barricaded the doors, we were essentially trapped where we were,” Byrd said in an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, speaking publicly for the first time since the riot. “There was no way to retreat. No other way to get out.
“If they get through that door, they’re into the House chamber and upon the members of Congress,” added Byrd, who gave NBC News permission to use his name after authorities had declined to release it.
Byrd’s connection to what was going on outside and inside the building was his police radio. For several minutes, it crackled with a cascade of alarming messages.
There were shouts of officers down. Screams from his colleagues under attack by rioters with chemical agents. A report that an officer’s fingertips were blown off.
“It was literally broadcast over the air,” Byrd said. “I said, ‘OK, this is getting serious.’”
Soon a horde of demonstrators arrived. Byrd, a 28-year veteran of the Capitol Police, took a defensive posture with his gun drawn as rioters smashed the glass doors.
He said he yelled repeatedly for them to get back. But the mob kept pressing forward, and then a lone rioter tried to climb through one of the doors.
What happened next was captured on video: Byrd fired one shot, striking Babbitt in the shoulder.
Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran and ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump, fell to the ground; she died from her injuries later.
Her death became a rallying cry for the far right, which described Babbitt as a martyr. Trump himself declared that she had been murdered and suggested, falsely, that the officer who shot her worked for a high-ranking Democrat.
For Byrd, who is Black, the incident turned his life upside down. He has been in hiding for months after he received a flood of death threats and racist attacks that started when his name leaked onto right-wing websites.
But in his interview with Holt, Byrd said he has no doubt that he made the right decision in light of the circumstances.
“I know that day I saved countless lives,” Byrd said. “I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”
Byrd said he had no idea whether the person he shot was carrying a weapon. It was only later that night that he found out that the rioter was a woman who was unarmed.
Asked why he pulled the trigger, Byrd said it was a “last resort.”
“I tried to wait as long as I could,” he told Holt. “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.”
Byrd has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Justice Department and the Capitol Police.
The video of the Ashli Babbitt shooting incident can be seen here (WANRING: GRAPHIC)
Many times in the last 10 years or so, we have seen situation where an officer shoots someone. Many of those have been a problem, and something that it’s not ok for the police to do. In many, but not all. In others, it has seemed like a solid shoot to me, which puts me at odds with many of my liberal comrades.
This is more solid than many of those. I can’t fathom what people thought was going to happen other than what did happen.
I’ve heard comments from other police officers on that day to the effect that they didn’t start using guns because their observation was that they would be outgunned if the shooting were to start. Not because it wasn’t justified. Officers on that day had every reason to fear for their lives.
I personally wish to thank Officer Byrd for his service.Report
If I remember the article correctly, this is the only time he’s fired his gun (outside of, you know, the range and stuff) in almost 30 years of service.
And he still waited until the very last possible second.
You know what kills me about the video though? Despite them literally trying to break the last door between them and the floor, with all those Congressmen, when the shot rang out — they still shouted “active shooter” and panicked, because they literally could not fathom the idea that an officer shot at them. They clearly thought someone else was shooting, from some unknown place, and not the officer holding his gun, aimed at them, as they tried to break through a window.
They had a riot, then an insurrection, and it clearly never occurred to them that they might get shot.
They were damn lucky that other officer lured them away from Pence, undoubtable saving their lives, as Pence’s Secret Service detail would not have played around either.Report
It would have been best if she’d have not been there in the first place. Second best if she’d have left peaceably having made her political point. Third best if she’d have heeded the calls that violence was about to be returned upon her and her fellow rioters and backed down. But instead we got to the last resort.
She’s not a martyr. She’s a criminal who was shot, while engaged in the commission of her crimes, by a police officer who very reasonably believed that the use of force was needed to defend himself and the people he was charged by law with protecting. We call other police officers who do this “heroes” and both legally and morally justify their actions. Officer Byrd is at least as much a hero as any other police officer in that circumstance. He has my best wishes for a recovery from the trauma of having had to have taken a life, which no doubt was the very last thing he ever wanted from his public service career. Ms. Babbitt’s family also has my sympathies for their loss; they surely loved her and now she’s gone.
It’s an awful thing, what happened because Donald Trump refused to publicly acknowledge that he lost the election, as fair and square as any President loses any election. Disrespecting democracy is a bloody business.Report
Most of the respectable Right has argued this, it really doesn’t hold up. It’s possible to be sympathetic that Michael Byrd was in a difficult position, but still realize that his exoneration was a whitewash. I’d feel better if a grand jury came back no true bill, but it didn’t even get that far.
For whatever happened on January 6, I think it simply has to be acknowledged that Ashli Babbitt was not an imminent threat to anybody’s life or limb at the time she was shot. She and the people she was with were potential threats, but I don’t think the police are authorized to use lethal force based on coulda shoulda woulda.
Alternatively, there’s “mob law” jurisprudence from the 19th century or whatever that says that if a person is being besieged by a mob, he’s entitled to use lethal force against any member of the mob. It seems to me that’s the actual logic by which Lt Byrd is being exonerated. But I’m pretty sure that those cases really aren’t in force today.
I think Lt Byrd is being sued by Ashli Babbitt’s family. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I hope he loses. He still ends up ahead of Ashli Babbitt.Report
Sure, it’s not like Babbitt was black and had been stopped for having a tail light out.Report
That cop was criminally charged, so it hardly substantiates your point.Report