San Diego woman killed in Capitol siege was Iraq War veteran, QAnon believer

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The San Diego woman who was fatally shot by police inside the U.S. Capital was a pro-Trump Iraq War veteran who frequented posted on social media about her political beliefs and aligned herself with QAnon thinking, it was reported Friday, Jan. 8.

Video footage from Wednesday's raid showed Ashli Babbitt, a 14-year Air Force veteran, was shot by a Capitol police officer while climbing through the busted-out window of a door to the Speaker's Lobby.

Past the door was the House chamber, where members of Congress were sheltering in place, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said in a statement.

The unidentified officer who shot Babbitt was placed on administrative leave, per department policy, and the officer's police powers have been suspended, Sund said. The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is also investigating the shooting.

Babbitt, a native San Diegan who most recently ran a pool-supply company, was ''emphatically pro-Trump,'' and took pleasure in posting her political beliefs online following years of feeling unable to do so while in the military, her family members told The New York Times.

Online records and Babbitt's Facebook page identify her as the CEO of Fowler's Pool Service and Supply Inc. in Spring Valley, which she co-owned with her husband, Aaron.

The Times reported that Babbitt's pool business was struggling. She took out a short-term business loan in 2017 and was sued by the lender after she stopped making payments, according to The Times.

On Thursday, the front door of the pool-supply business displayed a sign against wearing face coverings to slow the spread of COVID-19, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The sign starts with ``Mask Free Autonomous Zone: Better Known as America.''

Babbitt's Twitter feed was rife with political content. One tweet from September last year included a photo of her at a Trump boat parade in San Diego wearing a shirt that read ``We are Q.'' The tweet also included the phrase WWG1WGA -- QAnon's acronym for ``Where we got one, we go all.''

The day before chaos descended on the Capitol, she retweeted a video from pro-Trump page Right Side Broadcasting Network of a rally Tuesday in Freedom Plaza, which made mention of ''big protests'' happening the next day.

Her final Twitter post, made Wednesday, said, ``Nothing will stop us.....they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours....dark to light!''

Babbitt's ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, told The Washington Post that she served tours of duty with the Air Force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was deployed to Kuwait and Qatar with the National Guard.

``I feel absolutely terrible and sick to my stomach about it,'' McEntee told the paper. ``She was never afraid to speak her mind and in a way this (attending Wednesday's rally) was her way of speaking her mind.''

Babbitt's husband, Aaron Babbitt, told Fox 5 San Diego, that he sent his wife a message about 30 minutes before the shooting, but did not hear back.

``She loved her country and was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country,'' he told the news station. ``She was voicing her opinion and she got killed for it.''

The scene on Wednesday halted Congress' vote-counting, and lawmakers were evacuated from the building for several hours. The Capitol began being cleared at 6 p.m. Wednesday, when a curfew that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered earlier in the day went into effect.

Babbitt was one of four people who died at or near the Capitol Wednesday, Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said in a news conference. Three other people suffered apparent medical emergencies.

More than 50 Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers were injured in Wednesdays' insurgency, and ``several USCP officers have been hospitalized with serious injuries,'' Sund said Thursday.

One officer, identified as Brian D. Sicknick, was pronounced dead at a hospital Thursday night from injuries he suffered during the riot Wednesday, according to a Capitol Police statement. Sicknick ``was injured while physically engaging with protesters'' before returning to his division office and collapsing.

Sicknick had joined the Capitol Police in July 2008, and most recently served in the department's First Responders Unit, Capital Police officials said.

Capitol Police also responded to reports of pipe bombs and a suspicious vehicle on the southeast corner of the Capitol, Sund said, adding that a hazardous materials team ``determined that both devices were, in fact, hazardous and could cause great harm to public safety.''

Capitol Police have faced criticism in the aftermath of the riot. Sund announced Thursday that he will resign from his post, effective Jan. 16.