Powerline by Paul Mirengoff 8/1/2021
The Washington Post doesn’t like the fact that Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a police officer inside the Capitol on January 6 of this year, is being viewed by some as a martyr. The Post’s story, by anti-Trumper Josh Dawsey and Paul Schwartzman, drips with contempt for the notion that Babbitt could be a martyr. I don’t recall the Post ever questioning the view that George Floyd could be seen that way.
I don’t consider Floyd or Babbitt martyrs, but Babbitt is a stronger candidate for that status.
Floyd was a career criminal. He encountered the police on the day of his death because he was trying to pass a counterfeit bill. He encountered police violence because he ferociously resisted arrest.
Babbitt had no history of criminal behavior, as far as I know. She encountered the police not because she was trying enrich herself unjustly, like Floyd did, but because she was engaging in political protest. The protest took an unlawful and highly distasteful form, which precludes martyr status as far as I’m concerned. But Babbitt was acting selflessly, which makes her more sympathetic than Floyd in my eyes.
Unlike Floyd, Babbitt did not fight the police. As far as I can tell, she committed no violent act.
Yet, Dawsey and Schwartzman seem offended by the fact that Babbitt’s death has led to protests. They blame it on Donald Trump and others who, they say, are trying to “rewrite the narrative of one of the darkest days in the nation’s history.” They don’t accept the idea that people might genuinely be upset that a police officer would shoot an unarmed woman and that neither the name of the officer nor the facts supposedly justifying the killing has ever been made public.
More:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/ashli-babbitt-and-george-floyd-compare-and-contrast.php
