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Cop who killed Ashli Babbitt has 'significant' discipline history, including gun incidents: Report
The U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6 once fired his service weapon at fleeing vehicles near his home while his neighbor was in the line of fire, a congressional oversight committee reported.
Michael L. Byrd was promoted from lieutenant to captain in 2023 despite a “significant” history of referrals to the Capitol Police Office of Professional Responsibility, said U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.
The records of three disciplinary cases against Byrd are missing, according to Loudermilk. “This is disappointing, as the inability to locate these documents hinders the subcommittee from fulfilling its responsibility to conduct comprehensive oversight over the USCP,” Loudermilk wrote in a Nov. 20 letter to Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.
Disclosure of the Loudermilk letter was first reported by John Solomon at Just the News.
Loudermilk also cited “favorable treatment” given to Byrd, including a $36,000 retention bonus, more than $21,000 in security upgrades at his personal residence, and instructions that Byrd not sit for a fitness-for-duty evaluation after Jan. 6, 2021.
'Byrd’s weapon was left unattended in a public restroom for approximately 55 minutes.'
“The Subcommittee is aware that the USCP recently promoted Michael Byrd from lieutenant to captain,” Loudermilk wrote. “I have concerns about this decision given Byrd’s lengthy disciplinary history and the apparent political influence of internal operational decisions related to Byrd following January 6, 2021.”
As a captain, Byrd is paid $189,787 per year, a Capitol Police source told Blaze News. He is assigned to the Library of Congress.
Byrd shot Babbitt at 2:44 p.m. as she climbed into a broken-out window panel leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. He was cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice and Capitol Police, even though he never sat for an interview with the Metropolitan Police Department detectives investigating the shooting. He told NBC's Lester Holt in 2021 that he feared for his life, although he could not see if Babbitt had anything in her hands or even if she was male or female.
Shooting incident
In an April 2004 shooting incident, then-Sergeant Byrd armed himself with his service pistol after hearing loud banging noises near his Maryland home, Loudermilk said.
Byrd told Prince George’s County Police that one of two vans parked near his neighbor’s home accelerated in an attempt to hit him, so he fired a shot at the vehicle. Byrd said the second van also attempted to hit him and he fired a shot into the driver’s-side windshield, the Loudermilk letter said.
After police located and searched the vans, they found no bullet hole in either windshield. There was a single bullet lodged in the rear quarter panel near the gas cap of one vehicle.
Ashli Babbitt pleads with three U.S. Capitol Police officers to call for backup due to the angry crowd outside the Speaker’s Lobby on Jan. 6, 2021. She was shot by then-Lt. Michael Byrd minutes later when she climbed into a broken-out glass panel at the lobby entrance.Photo by Tayler Hansen
“Police determined that the bullet entered the van ‘from a rear angle,’ indicating the van was shot at from behind,” Loudermilk’s letter said.
Byrd’s neighbor told police “he was in the line of fire when Byrd discharged his service weapon.”
The Capitol Police OPR investigation found Byrd violated the USCP weapons and use-of-force policies by firing his gun in a “careless and imprudent manner.” It found there was “insufficient evidence” that Byrd violated the department’s truth policy in his statements to county police.
Retired USCP Inspector Yancey Garner wrote a letter to Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer “concurring with OPR’s findings,” Loudermilk said.
Byrd appealed the decision to the Disciplinary Review Board, which overturned the OPR findings and ruled that the complaint was “not sustained,” Loudermilk’s letter said.
High-school football altercation
In 2015, Byrd was referred to OPR after he got into an altercation with a Montgomery County Police Department officer at a high school football game in Maryland.
The police officer was providing security to keep spectators in the stands from accessing the track and football field. Byrd “became argumentative with the officer and began yelling profanities at the officer, calling him a ‘piece of sh**, a**hole, and racist,’” the letter said. Byrd accused the officer of “targeting the ‘black side’ of the field and then jumped the fence” to confront him.
A charge of conduct unbecoming an officer against Byrd was sustained by OPR, and he was suspended for seven days without pay, the letter said.
In 2019, Byrd was referred to OPR after leaving his loaded service weapon in a bathroom at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.
'I have concerns about USCP’s decision to promote him to the rank of captain.'
“Then-Lieutenant Byrd’s weapon was left unattended in a public restroom for approximately 55 minutes before it was discovered by another officer,” Loudermilk wrote. Byrd was suspended without pay for 33 days.
Loudermilk said Byrd has received favorable treatment compared to other officers since the Jan. 6 shooting.
He was awarded an unrestricted $36,000 retention bonus in August 2021. At around the same time, other officers — including those injured on Jan. 6 — were given $3,000 retention bonuses. In June 2022, officers were offered an $8,000 retention bonus. The letter said it was not clear whether Byrd also received the two other bonuses.
Capitol Police also planned to use their Memorial Fund for fallen officers to pay Byrd’s expenses, including overtime pay he lost by being off work following Jan. 6, the report said. The plan was to submit Byrd’s proposal ahead of any other Memorial Fund payments, including those for 90 officers injured on Jan. 6.
A mortally wounded Ashli Babbitt is rushed to an ambulance outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She was pronounced dead at a Washington, D.C., hospital a short time later.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News
The department helped Byrd establish a GoFundMe account in November 2021 that eventually raised more than $164,000. As a result of the success of the GoFundMe, Capitol Police decided against using the Memorial Fund to pay Byrd, the report said.
Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) made a $200 donation to Byrd's GoFundMe on Nov. 18, 2021. At the time, Kinzinger was a member of the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Kinzinger wrote on Twitter, “A worthy cause, as this man has faced quite an onslaught of misinformation and extreme threats.”
Capitol Police paid for more than $21,000 in security upgrades at Byrd’s home, the report said. The department also paid for Byrd to be housed at an on-base hotel at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Any time he left the secure base, Byrd had a USCP dignitary-protection detail.
“On at least one occasion in September 2021, Byrd’s DPD escorted him to a cigar lounge where he stayed out until 1:30 a.m., necessitating ‘extended DPD coverage,’” the report said.
Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Air Force for records related to Byrd’s stay at Joint Base Andrews. Costs for his accommodations at the Presidential Inn totaled more than $35,000 from July 8, 2021, through Jan. 28, 2022, according to records obtained in 2023 by Judicial Watch.
Capitol Police instructed Byrd not to sit for a fitness-for-duty evaluation following Jan. 6, “concerned that Byrd may fail” and if he did, “he would not be permitted to carry his service weapon,” the letter said.
In September 2021, Byrd attempted to purchase a shotgun but failed the mandatory background check required by federal law, the report said. The department “took steps to provide him with a USCP-issued shotgun and intended to ‘lend’ him a shotgun even if his background check ‘did not come through,’” the report said.
Byrd failed his shotgun proficiency and ultimately was not provided a USCP-issued shotgun, Loudermilk wrote.
Telework no-show
Capitol Police entered into a “telework” agreement with Byrd in July 2021, allowing him to work remotely five days a week, “but he did not return to work,” Loudermilk said. He was not disciplined for refusing to work. The department extended his paid administrative leave from Jan. 6 to cover days in July and August 2021 when he refused to work, the letter said.
“USCP then encouraged officers to donate their annual leave to Byrd in an internal bulletin,” Loudermilk said. “Byrd did not return to work until December 2021, months after he signed the telework agreement and nearly a year after January 6, yet he was never referred to OPR or disciplined.”
Loudermilk said based on the information his subcommittee unearthed during its investigation, “I have concerns about USCP’s decision to promote him to the rank of captain.”
The letter instructed Chief Manger to provide responses to a two-page list of requests from the subcommittee by Dec. 4.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Steven Robbs peers into the House Speaker’s Lobby after Lt. Michael Byrd shot Ashli Babbitt. A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Byrd said tactical officers were in the hallway when Byrd aimed and fired at Babbitt at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Tayler Hansen
Blaze News reached out to Chief Manger for comment but has not received a reply. Blaze News also contacted attorney Mark Schamel, who represented Byrd after Jan. 6, but has not received a reply.
The accounts of weapons negligence in Loudermilk’s letter are similar to accusations against Byrd in a $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2024 by Judicial Watch Inc. on behalf of Aaron Babbitt and his late wife’s estate.
The lawsuit stated that when Byrd shot Ashli Babbitt, “he breached multiple applicable standards of care” on the safe use of a firearm, the perception and assessment of “imminent threats,” use-of-force levels, escalation and de-escalation of force, use of warnings, firing backdrops, and obtaining “timely, appropriate medical aid,” the suit states.
Byrd violated Capitol Police Directive 1020.004, which states that “firearms may be withdrawn from their holsters only when officers are preparing for expected, prudent and lawful discharge” in order to protect themselves or others “from imminent death or serious physical injury,” the suit said.
“Lt. Byrd breached this standard of care by entering the demonstration at Level 5, the highest level of force, unholstering his firearm, and pointing it at Ashli and others through the windows of the east lobby doors,” the suit said.
“Lt. Byrd’s firearm was also aimed in the direction of four officers from the USCP’s elite and well-armed Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT), who had just reached the hallway,” the suit said.
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