THERE HAVE BEEN MORE COP MURDERS SINCE GEORGE FLOYD THAN BEFORE. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. NOTHING EVER DOES IN THIS COUNTRY!
Byrd, who makes north of $100,000 a year as a Capitol Police lieutenant, comes off as a dumb goober, a flatfoot in any other police department, a classic Parkinson's law case of a man promoted to his level of incompetence.
So why did the Capitol Hill cop come out?
After months of supposed hiding, the Capitol Hill cop who shot unarmed pro-Trump protestor Ashli Babbitt at the Capitol, Lt. Michael Byrd has come out of the woodwork to talk about his shooting, in a softball interview with NBC's Lester Holt.
Which is weird stuff, given that for months his identity had been concealed, by investigators, Congress, and other supposed watchdogs, on the grounds that revealing it to angry Trump supporters was too dangerous, and whose investigative conclusions excused him from accountability.
Now he's come out -- telling Lester Holt of his great heroics. He doesn't even need to, having been exonerated repeatedly.
The most likely reason is this lawsuit, and these efforts by Babbitt's family to get answers:
Babbitt’s family is suing for the identity of the officer to be publicly released but so far that effort has not borne fruit. They are also filing a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit, claiming the officer didn’t issue a verbal command according to the Washington Examiner.
A lawsuit would concentrate anyone's mind, even in the name of his agency, making it quite likely that he would think of preparing a defense.
It's a typical lawyer tactic, when it can be done and a judge doesn't slap it down, to try to sway public opinion, particularly when a defense is weak
Holt, who's no stranger to political water-carrying, would be the perfect such vehicle.
The problem here is that the effort has probably already backfired.
Byrd, who makes north of $100,000 a year as a Capitol Police lieutenant, comes off as a dumb goober, a flatfoot in any other police department, a classic Parkinson's law case of a man promoted to his level of incompetence.
After all, he has a history of mishandling weapons as news media have pointed out, leaving his gun once in a bathroom. And as for shooting dead an unarmed protestor, which normal cops would shrink at, he certainly didn't. Nor did he signal any human emotion or empathy as most cops would do upon making a miscalculation. Instead, he declared himself a hero and all but demanded applause.
According to Breitbart News:
Lt. Michael Byrd said in an exclusive interview with NBC News that he opened fire on January 6, after Ashli Babbitt failed to comply with his commands to stop breaching the glass doors leading into the lobby of the House of Representatives chamber.
About 60 to 80 House members and staffers were inside pushing furniture to block the doors.
Byrd said, “My name is Michael Byrd. Lieutenant for the United States Capitol Police.”
He continued, “I believe I showed the utmost courage on January 6. And it’s time for me to do that now.”
Anchor Lester Holt asked, “Were you afraid that day?”
Byrd said, “I was very afraid.”
He continued, “I had been yelling and screaming as loud as I was, ‘Please stop. Get back. Get back. Stop.’ We had our weapons drawn.”
He added, “I was again taking a tactical stance. You’re ultimately hoping your commands will be complied with, and unfortunately, they were not.”
Holt said, “And what did you think this individual was doing at that moment?”
Byrd said, “She was posing a threat to the House of Representatives.”
Here's the problem with that, according to BizPac Review:
The officer’s attorney claims he gave multiple verbal commands but they were inaudible on the video because he was wearing a mask. That begs the question then whether Babbitt could hear them either if he did indeed issue them.
Another problem is that with so many cops around, somehow he's the only one who went shooting.
Now it's possible he didn't do it with malice, though that's worthy of a question just because of his ties to Democrats. But if it wasn't malice, it appears to have been panic. Panic is never a good thing in a cop, especially one with a fancy title and salary. Nor did he save "countless lives" as he claimed, given that nobody in that unruly crowd was found with a gun.
It's actually pretty obnoxious, and embarrassing, to hear this Keystone cop toot his own horn. Nobody else is characterizing this oaf as a hero, not even Democrats, at least not loudly. Barney Fife is more like it, and that's not going to help his agency's court case. The Babbitts should look forward to a tidy payout after this kind of an embarrassment to the defense. The more he speaks, the less sympathetic he gets.
Image: Screen shot from NBC News video, via YouTube
THIS GUY MURDERED AN UNARMED WOMAN FOR MERELY CLIMBING OVER A BARRIER. HE IS JUST THE KIND OF ROBOTIC MURDERING COP THE STATUS QUO NEEDS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES WITH KNOWING WE WILL SOON BE COMING FOR THEM!
Officer Byrd Who Shot Ashli Babbitt During Capitol Riot Breaks Silence: ‘She Was Posing a Threat’
Lt. Michael Byrd said in an exclusive interview with NBC News that he opened fire on January 6, after Ashli Babbitt failed to comply with his commands to stop breaching the glass doors leading into the lobby of the House of Representatives chamber.
About 60 to 80 House members and staffers were inside pushing furniture to block the doors.
Byrd said, “My name is Michael Byrd. Lieutenant for the United States Capitol Police.”
He continued, “I believe I showed the utmost courage on January 6. And it’s time for me to do that now.”
Anchor Lester Holt asked, “Were you afraid that day?”
Byrd said, “I was very afraid.”
He continued, “I had been yelling and screaming as loud as I was, ‘Please stop. Get back. Get back. Stop.’ We had our weapons drawn.”
He added, “I was again taking a tactical stance. You’re ultimately hoping your commands will be complied with, and unfortunately, they were not.”
Holt said, “And what did you think this individual was doing at that moment?”
Byrd said, “She was posing a threat to the House of Representatives.”
Holt said, “Capitol Police, in their press release after exonerating you, said your actions potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death. What was it like to hear those words, to see those words?”
Byrd said, “Those words meant a lot because that’s exactly what I did on that day. That was my mission. That was what I prepared for. And it’s rewarding and refreshing to hear that.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Man brings civil lawsuit against Louisiana State Police after brutal assault by officers
Newly released police body camera footage has revealed yet another grisly instance of police brutality in the United States. The video shows a Louisiana State Police (LSP) trooper strike an African American man in the head 18 times with a police issue flashlight while other officers held him down. The aluminum instrument is 8 inches long, with a pointed end used to smash car window glass.
The man, Aaron Larry Bowman, 46, had been pulled over for a routine traffic violation and had repeatedly screamed to his captors, “I’m not resisting!” Blows from the flashlight split Bowman’s head open, creating a wound that required six staples to close. The trooper broke his jaw and three of his ribs, as well as his wrist. The body camera footage was buried for over two years since the vicious beating in May 2019.
The assault on Bowman occurred less than three weeks after LSP troopers murdered Ronald Greene, who died in police custody after being punched, stunned, choked and forcibly dragged.
In both cases, the police top brass initially circled the wagons around the offending officers. State police waited 536 days before opening an investigation into the attack on Bowman—and even then, some weeks after Bowman filed a civil lawsuit. In the case of Greene, state police waited 474 days to investigate, while Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards and other Louisiana officials refused to publicly release any body camera video of the incident for more than two years.
It was only after both incidents became a part of a federal investigation into police brutality—and cover-ups potentially implicating some of the highest-ranking officials in the LSP were exposed—that the agency chose to take any action against the officers involved in the attacks.
The LSP trooper who administered the savage assault, Jacob Brown, who is white, revealed the fascistic mentality and sadism rampant within law enforcement when he defended his use of deadly force as the application of “pain compliance.” Brown, who resigned last March, had 23 use-of-force incidents on record since 2015 alone, 19 of which had targeted African Americans. He reportedly bragged about beating another motorist, claiming he is “gonna be sore.” And declared, “It warms my heart knowing we could educate that young man.”
Brown now faces state charges of second-degree battery and malfeasance involved in his attack on Bowman, as well as additional state charges related to other violent arrests. It is unclear at this point whether the federal investigation will bring additional charges against him.
To add insult to injury, Bowman still faces a list of bogus charges stemming from the assault, including battery of a police officer and resisting an officer, as well as the initial charge of improper lane usage (a very minor infraction).
In the video, Bowman does not appear confrontational in any manner and clearly was complying with police officers. Instead, Brown’s body camera footage shows officers forcibly removing Bowman from his vehicle and throwing him to the ground. Brown then began his frenzied attack, hitting Bowman 18 times with his flashlight over a period of only 24 seconds.
During the attack, Brown shouted “give me your f***ing hands!” at the restrained Bowman, warning “I ain’t messing with you.” Bowman attempted several times to tell officers he was not resisting and that he was a dialysis patient. “I’m not fighting you, you’re fighting me,” he said, terrified. He then cried out for help. “I’m bleeding!” he said. “They hit me in the head with a flashlight!”
Brown did not report his use of force and deliberately obscured the violent content of his body camera footage, labeling it merely as a “citizen encounter.” While Brown’s tampering with evidence is certainly criminal in its own right, there is no way that he could have acted alone in suppressing details of the incident.
In the case of Greene’s death just weeks before, state police commanders pressured their detectives not to arrest state trooper Chris Hollingsworth, who had turned off his body camera prior to the fatal arrest. Hollingsworth was later recorded boasting of Greene’s slaying, claiming he choked and beat the “ever living f*** out of him.” According to notes obtained by the Associated Press, commanders became “very heated” with the detectives, warning them that bringing charges would cause investigators to “have issues with patrol.”
The autopsy, conducted by Arkansas State Crime Lab pathologists Jennifer Forsyth and Frank J. Paretti for the Union Parish Coroner’s Office, aided in the cover-up. The report concluded that it “cannot be stated with certainty” whether Greene’s injuries, such as a fractured sternum and lacerated aorta, were attributable to a car crash—the cause of death initially alleged by the LSP—or a physical struggle with troopers. By failing to specify whether Greene’s death could be considered an accident or a homicide, the report allowed troopers’ claims initially to go unchallenged.
While the probe already has uncovered massive wrongdoing and conspiracy on the part of the LSP, this alone will do nothing to solve the underlying issues surrounding the epidemic of police murder in the US. The political establishment is equally complicit in this phenomenon, having overseen the mass inequality, social misery, and pandemic-related deaths caused by the capitalist system which the police defend.
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