The Washington, D.C., establishment is, needless to say, up in arms over President-elect Trump’s plans to pardon the protestors who stormed the Capitol on January 6 four years ago. After hundreds of criminal prosecutions and sometimes long jail sentences meted out by federal judges, Trump’s pardons will be upending not only the entire prosecution-and-conviction scheme but also the ludicrous official narrative that has been used to justify the prosecutions and sentences. The narrative states that the protestors were intent on violently overthrowing the federal government and installing Trump into power — overcoming the opposition, of course, of the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the Capitol police, the D.C. police, and the FBI.
DOJ filing showing Ashli Babbitt and Zachary Jordan Alam in Speakers Lobby on Jan 6.
It would be difficult to find a more ludicrous narrative than that. It’s worth mentioning that not one of the protestors had AR-15s or other assault rifles or high-powered handguns. Just think — this would have been the first violent overthrow of a government in history without one “insurrectionist” wielding a gun.
Not so, however, with the Capitol police. They were fully armed, as one of the unarmed protestors, a woman named Ashli Babbitt, discovered. As Babbitt was attempting to get through a broken glass window inside the Capitol, Capitol policeman Michael Byrd shot her dead with his gun instead of simply arresting her and taking her into custody.
Mind you, Babbitt was not threatening Byrd with any force, much less deadly force. She was just trying to get through the window. The problem is that Byrd got scared, and his fear caused him to shoot and kill an unarmed protestor. Under the law, fear is not a justification for the unauthorized use of deadly force.
Not surprisingly, however, the U.S. Department of Justice let Byrd off the hook. They said that he was justified in shooting and killing Babbitt.
Well, let’s change the situation around. Let’s assume that Byrd was an unarmed Capitol guard. Let’s also assume that Babbitt trespassed into the Capitol with an AR-15. Let’s say that Babbitt encountered the uninformed Byrd, got scared, and shot and killed him.
What would have been the reaction of the Justice Department to that sequence of events? We all know the reaction. It would have been totally opposite to how they treated Byrd’s killing of Babbitt. They would have arrested Babbitt, quickly had her indicted and convicted of murder or some lesser included offense, such as manslaughter or at least negligent homicide. Some federal judge would have thrown the book at her, meting out the highest possible prison sentence.
Not so though with Michael Byrd. He gets to go scot-free despite the fact that he employed deadly force against an unarmed woman who was not threatening him with any force whatsoever, much less deadly force.
Michael Byrd doesn’t deserve a pardon for his disgraceful killing of an unarmed protestor, and we can only hope that President Biden doesn’t give him one before he leaves office. Byrd deserves a criminal indictment, which Trump’s Justice Department should secure for him.
