Terry Roberts, the attorney for the family of Ashli Babbitt, has announced they will be pursuing civil action in her case against the police officer who shot her in cold blood.
Roberts, the famed civil rights attorney who is currently representing Babbitt’s family, appeared on Newsmax on Monday, when he made the announcement regarding the pursuit of civil action. “The family and I were disappointed in the Department of Justice’s decision on this, but my role is really to bring a civil action and in that way, vindicate her rights,” Roberts said.
The Department of Justice announced earlier this month that they would not pursue charges against the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Babbitt during the protests on Capitol Hill on January 6th this year. Babbitt, who was unarmed, was killed by the officer when climbing through a window. “Based on that investigation, officials determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution,” the statement said at the time.
Roberts said on Friday that he and the family “strongly disagree” with the decision of the Department of Justice to not charge or even release the name of the officer involved. “We think that the evidence is ample and would support criminal charges against the officer,” Roberts said, saying that there was “no legal justification” for shooting Babbitt, and as she was unarmed, and did not present an “immediate threat”:
n addition to that, he doesn’t give any warnings. There is ample evidence he doesn’t give warnings. We talked to many people on Ashli’s side of the door, and nobody heard a warning. I don’t believe she even knew the officer was on the other side of the room. He’s off to her left, concealing himself in a room, so there’s no warning even before he shoots. This is a situation in which the officer could have easily arrested her if he had grounds to arrest her without using deadly force. So this was an egregious act of excessive force – he should have been charged.
Roberts said that there was a clear “double standard” when it came to the media coverage of Babbitt’s case. “If you were to change the circumstances, change the location a little bit, it’s a certainty that there would be charge,” Roberts said. “Obviously the political climate is such that charges are not favoured here. It really bothers us that there is a double standard at work,” he continued, adding that it “clearly has everything to do with” the fact that Babbitt supported President Trump.
Out of the originally reported five individuals whose death was linked to the protests on Capitol Hill, Babbitt is the only one whose death was ruled as a homicide by the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner. The most recent ruling was on the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who the mainstream media had initially claimed was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by “white supremacists” – his death was ruled as a result of natural causes, after he suffered two strokes cause by a blood clot in his brain stem.
Ashli Babbitt was the only person killed at The Capitol on January 6th. https://t.co/IYltZDybri
— Justice For Ashli Babbitt (@ForAshli) April 19, 2021