Election 2020: Ashli Babbitt Killing, Clean or Unclean?

We are still getting reactions after the Capitol Police cleared Michael Byrd in the killing of Ashli Babbitt in the Captiol and he came forward with favorable interview at NBC, w Independent Chronicle, Liberals extol officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt: 'Hero' ""My favorite hero!! He put a terrorist in the ground," said someone else." At the Times of San Diego, Officer Who Shot Ashli Babbitt: Jan. 6 Rioter Was ‘Posing a Threat to House of Representatives.’ Billy Binion (who the hell is he?) cited at Hot Hair, If you want police accountability on Jan. 6, you should want it every day. Yeah, I do.

Ed Driscoll at Insty, MICHAEL BYRD IS A HERO FOR KILLING ASHLI BABBITT, HAVE YOU NOT HEARD HIM SAY? 

“Ask yourself: when was the last time you celebrated a cop for killing an unarmed man or woman? If your answer is ‘never’ — which is likely — why have you made an exception for Ashli Babbitt? Before you answer, hopefully, NBC can explain its doubled standard. So keep all of this in mind as Michael Byrd makes the rounds on CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS, and then gets rich off a tell-all book. Byrd will have a lot to tell, by the way. He’s been a victim for years. Just ask him.”

Jonathon Turley, as usual, a relatively dispassionate examination of the incident, Justified shooting or fair game? Shooter of Ashli Babbitt makes shocking admission

At the time, some of us familiar with the rules governing police use of force raised concerns over the shooting. Those concerns were heightened by the DOJ’s bizarre review and report, which stated the governing standards but then seemed to brush them aside to clear Byrd.

The DOJ report did not read like any post-shooting review I have read as a criminal defense attorney or law professor. The DOJ statement notably does not say that the shooting was clearly justified. Instead, it stressed that “prosecutors would have to prove not only that the officer used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that the officer did so ‘willfully.’” It seemed simply to shrug and say that the DOJ did not believe it could prove “a bad purpose to disregard the law” and that “evidence that an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent.”

That defense didn't work for Derek Chauvin.

While the Supreme Court, in cases such as Graham v. Connor, has said that courts must consider "the facts and circumstances of each particular case," it has emphasized that lethal force must be used only against someone who is "an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and ... is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." Particularly with armed assailants, the standard governing "imminent harm" recognizes that these decisions must often be made in the most chaotic and brief encounters.

Under these standards, police officers should not shoot unarmed suspects or rioters without a clear threat to themselves or fellow officers. That even applies to armed suspects who fail to obey orders. Indeed, Huntsville police officer William “Ben” Darby recently was convicted for killing a suicidal man holding a gun to his own head. Despite being cleared by a police review board, Darby was prosecuted, found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison, even though Darby said he feared for the safety of himself and fellow officers. Yet law professors and experts who have praised such prosecutions in the past have been conspicuously silent over the shooting of an unarmed woman who had officers in front of and behind her on Jan. 6.
. . .
Of all of the lines from Byrd, this one stands out: “I could not fully see her hands or what was in the backpack or what the intentions are.” So, Byrd admitted he did not see a weapon or an immediate threat from Babbitt beyond her trying to enter through the window. Nevertheless, Byrd boasted, "I know that day I saved countless lives." He ignored that Babbitt was the one person killed during the riot. (Two protesters died of natural causes and a third from an amphetamine overdose; one police officer died the next day from natural causes, and four officers have committed suicide since then.) No other officers facing similar threats shot anyone in any other part of the Capitol, even those who were attacked by rioters armed with clubs or other objects.

Legal experts and the media have avoided the obvious implications of the two reviews in the Babbitt shooting. Under this standard, hundreds of rioters could have been gunned down on Jan. 6 — and officers in cities such as Seattle or Portland, Ore., could have killed hundreds of violent protesters who tried to burn courthouses, took over city halls or occupied police stations during last summer’s widespread rioting. In all of those protests, a small number of activists from both political extremes showed up prepared for violence and pushed others to riot. According to the DOJ’s Byrd review, officers in those cities would not have been required to see a weapon in order to use lethal force in defending buildings.

Althouse, "Legal experts and the media have avoided the obvious implications of the two reviews in the Babbitt shooting." Nick Arama at Red State, Jonathan Turley Calls out Concerning Comments by Ashli Babbitt's Shooter

The media has largely ignored the questions about the propriety of the shooting, because they were against Babbitt’s political beliefs. But the same standards of whether an officer is justified when shooting should apply whoever the person shot is — be they Trump supporter or BLM person.

Just as an aside, I can’t recall even one BLM/Antifa person shot by a police officer in response to all the horribly violent things they did over the past year. As Turley points out, not one other officer who was present fired on any of the other rioters during the Capitol riot, despite other circumstances in which some were, in fact, attacked by rioters.

𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗡:
26,000 troops sent to rescue 535 congress members hiding under desks from people with flags & red hats.

𝗡𝗢𝗪:
5,000 troops being sent to rescue 15,000 American citizens hiding from Islamic terrorists who were just handed a list of their names by the #Biden admin.

— Ricky Diaz 🇺🇸🇵🇷 (@iamrickydiaz) August 28, 2021

At ET, Jan. 6 Committee Seeks Records From 15 Tech Platforms, Insty, BAD WORDS AND DESPERATION: DEMOCRATS FLAIL TO KEEP JANUARY 6 RELEVANT and The Nation’s Elie Mystal wants to use January 6th as a pretense to “nationalizing the midterm elections:”

Related, at Da Hill, Thousands march on Washington in voting rights push, Choot 'em Lizbef!

At Da Signal, Report: Wisconsin Lost Track of 82,000 Ballots in State Biden Won by 20,000, which in itself doesn't prove the state was stolen, but it certainly provides the means and opportunity. We know the Democrats had the motive.

At JTN, Bipartisan election reform bill brewing in Pennsylvania Senate "Cosponsors said their bill purposefully avoids "more controversial recommendations like voter identification requirements" and focuses instead on those with "broader bi-partisan support.""

The chairs of the State Government Committee began circulating a cosponsorship memo earlier this month for their joint plan, which allows for a three-day pre-canvassing rule, continuous video surveillance of ballot drop boxes, tightened application deadlines and an elimination of the permanent mail-in list, among other changes.

Molinaro Moss, cited at Hot Hair,  Trump's "Kraken" lawyers got what they deserved. OK, let's start disbarring Democrat lawyer who file losing suits. 

Sundance at CTH, California Governor Worries His Recall is a Referendum on Joe Biden and Democrats

The Atlantic Article interviewing the perpetually inept far-left advocate for all things big government, Gavin Newsom, doesn’t specifically say the California governor is worried about his recall being a wider referendum on Joe Biden, but the gorilla in the room is visible through the fear the interview conveys.

The left-wing Democrat socialists writ large have pushed their agenda so hard against the common threads that bind American society, that now the Newsom recall effort looks like an opportunity for common-sense to push back. I smile because there are trembles amid the dark forces of the globalists, the multinationals and the institutional corporations who need Newsom and his Democrat tribe.