SAN DIEGO (AP) – Like President Donald Trump, the San Diego woman who was fatally shot by police when a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol had used Twitter to bolster her opinion, including false allegations that the November election was riddled with fraud.
“Nothing will stop us … they can try and try, but the storm is here and it’s going down in less than 24 hours on DC … dark to light!” Ashli Babbitt wrote 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 on Thursday identified 35-year-old Babbitt as the woman who was fatally shot by an unidentified officer. Bystander video shows her trying to climb through the broken window of a barricaded doorway into the Capitol when the officer fired.
While some who support exposed views on everything from the coronavirus to the elections are likely to view her as a martyr, Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund said the crowd was involved in “criminal insurrection”, not in freedom of speech.
On social media, Babbitt often lashed out at the president’s common targets: illegal immigration, government mandates to contain the coronavirus, and especially Trump’s critics.
Her Twitter account promoted mainstream conservative views but also included references to QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the baseless belief that Trump has secretly fought against deep enemies of the state and a cabal of Satan-worshiping cannibals trading a child sex ring.
Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who identified as a Libertarian and supporter of the Second Amendment, regularly posted baseless views on electoral fraud committed by the president and his most extreme supporters – activists whose conspiracy theories and unwavering support for Trump have drawn large online followers.
Videos that she posted online show that she fulminates against illegal immigration. Her messages were blasphemous at times.
Babbitt seemed to make pleas to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as an insult to her personal freedoms. She supported a recall against California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who issued strict orders to stay at home.
“Mask-Free Autonomous Zone, better known as America,” read a large sign on the front door of a pool company she ran with her husband in Spring Valley, near San Diego. No one opened the door on Thursday at the company or at the couple’s home, a modest duplex in San Diego.
In August 2016, Babbitt was charged with reckless danger for driving a woman’s car three times in Calvert County, Maryland and chasing her through the streets in what has been described as “ road rage. ” She was acquitted months later.
Babbitt was one of the rioters who broke into the Capitol on Wednesday, forcing members of Congress to hide, Sund said. Rioters “actively” attacked law enforcement with metal pipes, released chemical irritants and “took up other weapons against our officers,” he said.
Babbitt’s husband, Aaron Babbitt, told KSWB-TV, a Fox daughter in San Diego, that he messaged his wife about 30 minutes before the shooting and never heard a word.
“She loved her country and she did what she thought was right to support her country by working with like-minded people who also love their president and their country,” he said.
“She gave her opinion and she was killed for it,” he said.
Videos posted by bystanders show a crowd in a hallway standing against a series of barricaded glass-paneled doors. Some were beating at them with sticks and stakes as people shout, “Put it down!”
A gloved hand with a pistol is visible, pointing diagonally to the doors. Someone shouts, “He’s got a gun!”
Babbitt appears to be hoisted against one of the glass panes. An officer points a gun at her, fires and she falls to the ground.
“Shots fired!” someone shouts.
A bystander says, “Ladies and gentlemen, a lady has just been shot. Maybe she’s 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 those with a range of grievances ranging from disbelief in the severity of the pandemic to beliefs in QAnon conspiracy theories.
“If you have people in an alternate universe, they will take a catalytic event and run it in a way that most appeals to their emotions and fears, regardless of what the facts ultimately show,” he said.
Babbitt’s ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, called 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.
A Facebook account by the name of Babbitt says she married Aaron Babbitt on June 25, 2019.
The Air Force said on 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 National Guard from 2010 to 2016.
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Associated Press writers, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Jennifer Peltz in New York, and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report.