This is another video that ends in the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. I've included some time-cited comments about the apparent attitudes, motivations and actions of the mob that also found their way to the Speaker's Lobby where Babbitt was shot. The times cited are typically targeted seconds
before what I'm commenting on such that my comments pertain to what follows shortly after the cited times. Given all the locations this crowd exists are beyond limits police attempted to secure, I call the crowd a 'mob' to acknowledge their illicit intentions.
0:15: The mob idling on Capitol steps outside begins surging forward to get into the Capitol.
1:32: At the top of the steps, Capitol Police abandon a gated crowd-control line as the mob begins pushing on the gate. A couple officers held up their batons as threats. While some speculate Capitol Police officers abandon their positions because they were in cahoots with the mob, what we see here looks to me like they were actually coerced by fear of the mob.
2:44: As the videographer approaches an overlook, we have a wide view of the massive siege on U.S. Capital, a sea of thousands of angry people extends across the lawn and down Pennsylvania Avenue as far as the eye can see. Freeze frame here to see all the people below. Riot police in black helmets on the lawn directly below (lower right of the frame) are seen being surrounded and pushed back by the forward-surging crowd. At the same time those retreating officers were also recorded from the ground
here.
6:14: The videographer enters the Capitol. The scene inside is chaotic, people walking left and right, people yelling, sounds of banging, smoke wafting through the air, flags all over. The mob seems to be looking all over for something.
8:10: Police try to eject the videographer and others. He is quasi-detained by the police until 12:32.
13:25: Two identically paramilitary-clad individuals with heavy-duty gas-masks are seen. A shoulder patch on one guy has a cross with “Armor of God” overlaid. While there are numerous members of the mob in various degrees of military dress, these guy seem rather conspicuous. An implication is that those who came to D.C. with military dress and gas masks intended to engage in a siege on the Capitol.
17:29: A man walks past the camera loudly saying, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi [illegible]…”
18:38: Marching forward, the mob approaches a line of police officers and begins chanting, “USA, USA, …”
19:02:
THREATS: Held at the line of Capitol Police, a woman in the mob directly facing the officers yells at them: “Tell Pelosi we’re coming for that bitch. Tell fucking Pelosi, we’re coming for her. You fucking traitorous cops, we’re coming for her.” Several members of the mob call the officers traitors. These moments underscore the insurrectionist fervor in the crowd and the great danger the mob posed for any elected officials, it seems particularly Nancy Pelosi, if they were to get their hands on them.
“Tell Pelosi we’re coming for that bitch. Tell fucking Pelosi, we’re coming for her. You fucking traitorous cops, we’re coming for her.”
19:32: The mob starts chanting, “Stop the steal, stop the steal, ….” Obviously, what Trump persuaded them to believe, that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen, is what they’re there about. And they are there to try to impede the certification of the election scheduled to occur that day.
20:14: The mob begins chanting, “We want Trump, we want Trump, …” Obviously, their demand is that the results of the 2020 election be thrown out and Trump be allowed to stay in office.
20:54: It sounds to me that it is the videographer who
indirectly threatens officers, saying they are going to get hurt if they don’t let the mob advance, and he asserts the mob’s authority by saying: “The people have spoken.” So they should cede to the will of 'the people'.
22:06:
THREATS: After random calls of the police officers as traitors, a mob member tells the police holding the line in a seriously threatening tone: “This ain’t going to end well boys. It’s not going to fucking end well. No, no it’s not!” The implication was that the officers are going to suffer some terrible fate if they don't let the mob proceed.
26:10: The mob finally breaks through the police line. The videographer is at the front of the breach and seems to help push the officers back while pleading with them to stop resisting.
26:47: Surging forward from the line breach, as the mob enters a narrow short hallway before a closed door, they start chanting, “Stop the steal, stop the steal, …” The impression is they sense they will momentarily be entering a room, so they intend to introduce themselves as they enter with their thematic chant. Instead, they spend several minutes futilely attempting to open the door.
31:39: Still unable to breach the door, the mob starts chanting, “Break it down, break it down, …” They are certainly many miles past any possibility of having the misimpression that they are engaged in legal activity.
33:00: The mob enters the short hallway to the Speaker’s Lobby where Babbitt will be shot in a few minutes. The mob screams, “Open the door,” and begins pounding on it. Some mob members mobilize the crowd forward shouting, “Let’s go, let’s go.” The videographer pushes his way through the packed crowd appearing to say, “Let me through, I’ve got a knife.”
33:59: Facing three officers who are standing in the way of the Lobby entrance, a member of the mob shouts, “Fuck the blue,” twice.
34:04: The videographer reaches the Lobby doorway and it seems to me that it is he who says to an officer guarding the door: "We want you to go home. I'm recording, and there's so many people, they’re going to push their way up here. Bro, I've seen people out there get hurt. I don't want to see you get hurt." Then the officers leave, whereupon the mob recommences bashing their way through the Lobby’s glass-windowed doors.
34:51: It seems to me that it is the videographer who sees through a window a gun held by an officer inside the Lobby and repeatedly yells the warning: “There’s a gun!” Babbitt nevertheless proceeds to enter through a smashed-out window and is shot, falling back to the floor as other cops with some serious guns arrive from behind up a flight of stairs. The mob becomes distracted from trying to breach the Lobby by the medical emergency of Babbitt bleeding out as she lays on the floor. This distraction allows time for more police officers to arrive.
39:15: The police begin pushing the mob out of the short Lobby hallway and the video ends soon thereafter. The shooting of Babbitt created a distraction that broke the focus of the mob. While they didn't seem to assume they were going to get shot next, given that they didn't run for cover, they did cease further efforts to proceed breaking into the Lobby.
At this time it remains somewhat mystifying exactly what the mob intended to do to ensure the 2020 election was overthrown. But this footage establishes that the belief installed in their minds by Trump, Giuliani and others that the election was stolen was what motivated their criminal siege on the U.S. Capitol. It seems reasonable to assume is that if this mob, or other mobs roving around the Capitol, had found the elected officials on their hit lists, those officials could have been harmed, held hostage or killed. Imagine if a mob of people were screaming that they're coming for you and began trying to break down your front door. The likelihood that you could suffer serious bodily injury or even death would not be an unreasonable concern.