Posted on 08/26/2021 4:45:04 PM PDT by RandFan
The officer who shot and killed a woman during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has come forward after months of secrecy surrounding his identity due to reported death threats and heated Republican rhetoric about his actions.
Lt. Michael Leroy Byrd, a 28-year-veteran of the force, told NBC News on Thursday that it has been “frightening” to receive death threats for doing his job.
“They talked about, you know, killing me, cutting off my head, you know, very vicious and cruel things. … There were some racist attacks as well,” he said, calling them “disheartening because I know I was doing my job.”
In the moments leading up to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, Byrd said: “I was very afraid. I’m hearing about the breaches of different barricaded areas, officers being overrun, officers being down.”
“Once we barricaded the doors, we were essentially trapped where we were. There was no way to retreat. No other way to get out,” he added.
Byrd said he did not regret his actions, though he called firing his weapon a “last resort.”
“I followed my training, and I spent countless years preparing for such a moment,” he said, noting that to him in that moment Babbitt “was posing a threat” to lawmakers in the House Chamber.
At that time, he said, he did not know that she was unarmed, but there had been reports of shots fired in the Capitol.
“I know that day I saved countless lives. I know members of Congress as well as my fellow officers and staff were in jeopardy and in serious danger. That’s my job.”
“I believe I showed the utmost courage on Jan. 6, and it’s time for me to do that now” in coming forward, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
>> She was held in place as she tried to retreat, she was shot... murdered..
She was assisted into the window frame by an actor who responded to another actor standing by the gunman.
She’s a trained AF Vet. who taunted the gunman, then waited for the gunman to get into position, and thereafter with the assistance of an actor, hops into the line of fire...
Does that make sense to you?
I encourage him to talk talk talk to the media and make all sorts of foolish claims, the better to show him as a lying coward at his civil trial.
Byrd says he had put himself in a position of having no way to retreat. That strikes me as something that can be proved false via a simple floor plan. If I perceived the video correctly, and the bulkhead he was hiding behind controlled a corridor and offices that continued behind his position. Life-safety design principles would not allow stacking offices in a dead end corridor like that; there has to be a second path of travel to a fire exit or “place of refuge”.
Byrd claims to have saved countless lives by gunning down Babbitt. That requires that there were countless lives to save behind his position. Hadn’t the Capitol been evacuated long before this stage? Where is a list of the supposedly saved individuals? Why was Byrd unable to retreat to wherever these people were hunkered down?
The video shows swat officers with assault rifles coming up the stairs. They did not act as if they sensed immediate danger of being torn to pieces, and managed not to shoot anyone, even though they were among the protesters. They seemed to be approaching Ashli Babbitt from behind, and seemed surprised when she was executed.
If he was white, he’d be in prison on murder charges.
Someone who was coached.
No one talks like this.
Man oh man I’ll tell you that if she came through our garage or in our bedroom window that way with such a violent crowd around her like that and I were armed and protecting my perimeter I’d be as patient as possible to the end but definitely I would take the kill or at least severely disable shot.
🐂💩
I hope so as well.
He saved lives by shooting an unarmed woman?
He needs to keep lying to himself in order to justify his very existence.
Karma can be a real boetch, Byrd... A real boetch.
Just keep lying to yourself and everybody else....you’ll find out soon enough.
Future victim of a mugging gone wrong. 😏
Those actors helped in causing her life. Either of those “officers or actors” could have stood in front of that door (where they were hired to protect) and this don’t happen.
I suspect this guy was “only following orders.” I believe that he was told to shoot someone. The FBI and the Democrats really needed some deaths.
Unarmed.
Not a single gun was confiscated.
Frikken lunatic
Keep telling yourself that. Probably won’t help at 2 AM when you can’t sleep or when you hear footsteps behind you. But keep telling yourself that.
What about the SWAT team outside that door? Did they not also see immanent danger to countless lives?
Heard that the coward ran down the hallway (after the camera was off) changed his clothes, took the gun and escorted him out. The same place that there was 2 buses that brought antifa in. Strange how there is likely security cameras everywhere but no footage other than the cell phone video. You know the security cameras caught it all.
Self censorship. To think people here on FR mock the protesters, talk about how stupid and justified the response was/is.
Byrd is the scum of the earth and would be better suited working for the Taliban.
Just saw clips of the inteeview. Seems to have a single digit IQ.
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