The future insurrectionist had rammed her vehicle three times with an SUV and was pounding on the window, challenging her to a fight, when she first laid eyes on Ashli.
The bad blood between them began in 2015, when Babbitt had an extramarital affair with a live-in boyfriend. When she learned of the relationship, she told the husband she was cheating.
According to an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, the woman pulled up yelling and screaming during the road-rage incident in Prince Frederick, Maryland. It took me 30 seconds to figure out who she was.
Norris was confused and called the emergency number. Babbitt was charged with a number of offenses.
The attack on Norris is an example of erratic and sometimes threatening behavior by Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer while at the forefront of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Donald Trump and his supporters wanted to portray her as a righteous martyr.
She was called an incredible person by Trump and he even recorded a birthday greeting for her. The officer who shot her was cleared of any wrongdoing by two prior federal investigations.
The life of the Air Force veteran from California, who died while wearing a Trump campaign flag wrapped around her shoulders like a cape, is more complicated than the heroic portrait presented by Trump and his allies.
In the months before her death, she was consumed by pro-Trump conspiracy theories and posted angry rants on social media. She had a history of making threats.
The Speaker's Lobby inside the Capitol was the scene of a mob supporting Trump's false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, when police officers were evacuated from the building. She was one of five people who died after the riot.
On social media, he identified as a Libertarian and ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. She posted videos of rants against Democrats and illegal immigrants.
Her account was taken down after she died, and it was filled with references to the false belief that Trump has battled deep-state enemies and a group of Satan-worshiping cannibals.
Nothing will stop us. The storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours.
The predicted day that Trump would finally reveal the pedophiles and arrest and execute those deemed traitors is referred to as "The Storm" by Q followers.
She has achieved martyr status among Trump supporters because of Trump's insistence that she was murdered. Her name and likeness are on flags at pro- Trump rallies.
A personal injury lawyer in Maryland has raised $375,000 through a Christian website and is threatening to file a lawsuit against the Capitol Police.
According to the wrongful death claim, the former military police officer who was 5-foot-2 and weighed 115 pounds would have surrendered peacefully if Capitol officers had tried to arrest her.
When a reporter knocked on the door of the San Diego apartment he shared with Ashli and another woman, he declined to comment. In a June interview with Tucker Carson of Fox News, Babbitt said that he was sick of what he had read about his dead wife.
There has never been a person who ran across Ashli that didn't love her.
That is not how he felt about her.
The AP has previously reported on the court records relating to the 2016 confrontation between Babbitt and Norris. In an interview with the AP, he spoke about it for the first time, sharing previously unreported details. She provided documents and photos from the crash scene to support her account.
When she found out that he was cheating on her with a married co-worker, she ended her relationship with him. Ashli McEntee was the other woman and she found out that she was the wife of the man.
He was telling me about a woman on his shift. They were having a relationship while they were at work.
She reached out to Timothy McEntee when she learned of the affair.
She said she was trying to keep her home life together.
After trying for a few months to patch up her relationship with Babbitt, she decided to move out of their house. Ashli moved in within a few days, according to Norris.
A few weeks later, she was waiting at a stop sign in Prince Frederick, an hour southeast of Washington, D.C., when a white Ford Explorer passed her.
The SUV pulled a U-turn before speeding up behind her. The SUV driver lay on the horn and tried to pass the Suburban on the narrow two-lane road.
The white Ford SUV rammed into the rear bumper of the Chevy when the driver pulled over. She said the SUV rammed her three times, all while the vehicles continued to roll down the road.
After calling for help, the emergency dispatch advised her to pull over. As she waited for help, Babbitt got out of her vehicle and banged on the window of the other car.
The force of the impact caused her seatbelt to lock, preventing her from getting out of her car. Within minutes, they arrived.
A case report from the Calvert County Sheriff's Office shows that Ashli Babbitt was issued a criminal summons on charges of reckless endangerment, which is a Class 3 felony in Maryland. She was charged with malicious destruction of property for the damage to the vehicle.
The charges were later amended to include traffic offenses, such as reckless driving, negligent driving and failure to control a vehicle's speed to avoid a collision.
The AP received photos from the scene that show the white Ford Explorer that Babbitt was driving being smashed in. The hood of the SUV is damaged. The Escape bumper was pushed in on the passenger side because of the detached Maryland license plate on the front bumper.
A peace order was obtained against Ashli Babbitt after she was involved in an altercation with a friend of hers. The judicial order barred Ashli Babbitt from attempting to contact her, from committing further acts of violence against her, and from going to her home or workplace.
A copy of the order, dated the same day as the altercation, contains a written account of what happened by her friend. According to a note on the document, Norris couldn't remember what happened because her hands were still shaking.
In the weeks after the incident, Babbitt lied to authorities, saying that she had been hit by a vehicle when she backed her vehicle into it. When the case went to trial, she changed her story, admitting that she had collided with the vehicle but had not actually hit it.
The lawyer for Babbitt made repeated references to her military service and her employment at the local nuclear power plant during the hearing, but no transcript was available. He was in the Air National Guard and the Air Force reserves. The judge acquitted the man.
Records show that in February of last year, Norris got a second peace order against Ashli. In a handwritten petition, Norris said that she had recently received repeated calls from an unlisted number and that she had been followed from work.
I didn't know what she was capable of, so I lived in fear. I was looking over my shoulder.
She settled out of court with the insurance carrier for an undisclosed amount of money after filing a personal injury lawsuit against Ashli Babbitt.
Ashli had family in California where she grew up. The divorce of Timothy McEntee was granted in Maryland. McEntee did not reply to the messages left at his home.
Ashli posted on Facebook that she married a man. Ashli and her brother owned a pool cleaning service. A sign on the locked door of the business declared it to be the "Mask Free Autonomous Zone Better known as America" after a reporter visited the business the day after her death.
In the year since the insurrection, Trump and many Republicans in Congress have sought to portray it as a peaceful event, despite the fact that video footage and testimony from Capitol Police officers show otherwise.
In his video on her birthday, Trump said that he and his family were grieving her death. Ashli should not have died that day. We must all demand justice for Ashli and her family, so on this solemn occasion as we celebrate her life, we renewed our call for a fair and nonpartisan investigation into the death of Ashli.
The lawyer for the man did not respond to many phone messages and emails. He said her shooting was an execution without trial.
Roberts said that Ashli would have complied with simple verbal commands, thereby making the use of any force unnecessary.
In an interview in August, the Capitol Police officer who shot Babbitt said that he fired as a last resort. He had no idea if the person was armed when he pulled the gun.
In April, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia found that he acted in self-defense and in the defense of members of Congress. The U.S. Capitol Police cleared the man in August.
I tried to wait as long as I could. I hoped no one tried to enter through those doors. I had to take action to save the lives of members of Congress and myself because of their failure to comply.
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The Associated Press correspondent in San Diego contributed to the report.
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Investigative Reporter Michael Bieseck can be reached at http://www.mbieseck.com.
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Contact the global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
