R&I – TxPAT ***
By Scott Glover, CNN
Updated 8:11 AM ET, Fri June 18, 2021
Watch “Assault on Democracy: The Roots of Trump’s Insurrection” this Sunday, June 20 at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.
(CNN) On a sunny morning in February, as a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace” filled the salt air, Ashli Babbitt’s family and friends scattered her ashes into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
The ceremony, aboard a chartered boat, was supposed to be a final goodbye for the 35-year-old Air Force veteran and fervent Donald Trump supporter who was fatally shot in the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
Babbitt was shot once in the shoulder by an unidentified Capitol police lieutenant while attempting to crawl through a broken window leading to the Speaker’s Lobby outside the US House of Representatives’ chamber. The shooting was captured on video and went viral for the world to see. The lieutenant has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
But nearly six months after she was slain, Babbitt’s memory not only lives on, it has become as polarizing and as politicized as the day itself.
To some Americans on the right, she’s a patriot who died a martyr’s death. To others on the left, she’s a domestic terrorist who got what she deserved — a sentiment conveyed with its own Twitter hashtag, #SheWasATerrorist.
“She is the tragedy of the modern Republican voter personified,” liberal political commentator Bill Maher proclaimed in January. “She died for a second Trump term even though that would have solved exactly none of her problems.”
Continued
Carl Sagan
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/politics/ashli-babbitt-capitol-hill-riot-death-invs/index.html