SAN DIEGO (AP) – Like President Donald Trump, the San Diego woman was fatally shot by police when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, using Twitter to bolster her views, including false allegations that the election in November was riddled with fraud.
“Nothing will stop us … they can try and try, but the storm is here and it descends on DC within 24 hours … dark to light!” Ashli Babbitt wrote on Tuesday, a day before she and thousands of other Trump supporters took part in the siege in Washington, DC, to try to keep the president in power.
Capitol police identified Babbitt, 35, on Thursday as the woman who was fatally shot by an unknown officer. The video of the bystander shows her trying to climb through the broken window of a locked door into the Capitol when the officer shot.
While some who support their views on everything from the coronavirus to the election are likely to be considered martyrs, Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund said the crowd was involved in ‘criminal rioting behavior’, not freedom of speech not.
On social media, Babbitt has often raged against the president’s frequent targets – illegal immigration, government mandates to contain the coronavirus and especially Trump’s critics.
Her Twitter account promoted the conservative views of the mainstream, but also references to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which focuses on the unfounded belief that Trump fought the state enemies in secret and a cabal of satan-worshiping cannibals who engage in sexual trafficking for children industry.
Babbitt, a veteran of the Air Force who identified himself as a Libertarian and supporter of the Second Amendment, regularly posted unfounded views on the election fraud by the president and his most extreme supporters – activists whose conspiracy theories and relentless support for Trump online follow-ups.
Videos she posted online show how it is fully against illegal immigration. Her posts were sometimes ominous.
It seems that Babbitt’s pleas to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus are seen as an insult to her personal freedoms. She supports a recall by California Government Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has imposed strict home orders.
“Mask-free autonomous zone better known as America,” reads a large sign on the front door of a pool service business she ran with her husband in Spring Valley, near San Diego. No one answered the door Thursday at the business or the couple’s home, a modest duplex in San Diego.
In August 2016, Babbitt was charged with reckless threats for hitting a woman’s car three times in Calvert County, Maryland, and chasing her through the streets in what is described as ‘road rage’. She was acquitted months later.
Babbitt was one of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and forced members of Congress to hide, Sund said. Rioters “actively attacked” law enforcement with metal pipes, dissolved chemical irritants and “took up other weapons against our officers,” he said.
Babbitt’s husband, Aaron Babbitt, told KSWB-TV, a subsidiary of Fox in San Diego, that he sent a message to his wife about 30 minutes before the shooting and never heard from him again.
“She loved her country and she did what she thought was right to support her country, and with like-minded people who also love their president and their country,” he said.
“She expressed her opinion and she was killed for it,” he said.
Videos posted by bystanders show a crowd in a hallway enclosed by a set of glass-paneled doors. Some beat them with sticks and poles while people shouted, “Bust down!”
A glove with a gun is visible and points diagonally towards the doors. Someone shouts, “He has a gun!”
It looks like Babbitt is being hoisted up against one of the glass panes. An officer points a gun at her, shoots and she falls to the ground.
“Shots fired!” shouted someone.
A bystander says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a woman has just been shot. She may be dying now. ‘
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said Babbitt will be remembered as a martyr by people with a variety of grievances ranging from disbelief in the severity of the pandemic to faith in QAnon. conspiracy theories.
“If you have people in an alternative world, they will take a catalytic event and turn it around in a way that is most of their emotions and fears, no matter what the facts may ultimately show,” he said.
Babbitt’s ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, calls her a ‘wonderful woman with a big heart and a strong mind’ in an email to The San Diego Union-Tribune. McEntee said he and Babbitt were married from April 2005 to May 2019.
According to a Facebook account with Babbitt’s name, she married Aaron Babbitt on June 25, 2019.
The Air Force said Thursday that Ashli Elizabeth McEntee was on active duty from 2004 to 2008, most recently at Dyes Air Force Base near Abilene, Texas. She was also a member of the Air Force Reserve from 2008 to 2010 and the Air Guard from 2010 to 2016.
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Associated Press authors Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Jennifer Peltz in New York and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report.