The agent who shot and killed a Trump supporter during the storming of the US Congress on Jan. 6 feared for his life and that of the Congressmen he was tasked to protect. “I was terrified,” says Michael Byrd in the first interview in which he tells his story, more than six months after the violence.
Byrd guarded a corridor where Congressmen and their associates had holed up when an angry mob stormed the Capitol. The president had called on his supporters to walk to the building because it was there that his election defeat was officially confirmed.
When the protesters broke into the building and threatened to push through to where Congressmen had been hiding, Byrd opened fire on a protester trying to climb through a shattered door. Ashli Babbitt, 36, died on the spot.
“I wanted to wait as long as possible. I hoped and prayed that no one would climb through the doors,” Byrd describes that moment in the interview with NBC. “But because no one listened to orders, I had to take appropriate action to protect Congressmen, myself and my colleagues.”
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