A Blaze News video investigation found that the duo assisted and shadowed a large group of protesters from the Capitol’s West Plaza to the House Speaker’s Lobby before Babbitt was fatally shot.
The pair later met secretly with U.S. Capitol Police at the edge of Capitol grounds and shared at least one video clip as evidence before the Babbitt shooting investigation was even officially under way. Capitol Police did not make a video or audio recording of their talks with the men. One of the men sat in an unmarked squad car and showed USCP special agents at least some of his video, security footage reviewed by Blaze News showed.
The men have been the subject of intense social media speculation for some time. They warranted just a few paragraphs in the now-closed Babbitt shooting investigation conducted by the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department.
Nicknamed “Frick and Frack” by a YouTube satirist, the men have long been considered important material witnesses in the killing of Babbitt, 35, of San Diego. They have not been publicly identified, arrested by the FBI, or charged by federal prosecutors.
As the FBI Jan. 6 arrest total heads toward 1,600, it’s not fully clear how aggressive the bureau will continue to be in the wake of former President Donald J. Trump’s landslide re-election on Nov. 5. Despite a reported DOJ decision to focus only on violent cases leading up to Jan. 20, the FBI recently arrested a 74-year-old cancer patient for nonviolent Jan. 6 misdemeanors.
Analyzing more than 22,000 hours of Capitol Police security video posted on Rumble by a U.S. House committee, Blaze News tracked the movements of Frick and Frack from the early violence on the West Plaza to their meeting with police and to them walking west away from Capitol grounds at 4 p.m.
Babbitt, an Air Force and National Guard veteran who came to Washington, D.C., to hear then-President Trump speak, was shot at nearly point-blank range at 2:44 p.m. by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
She died a half-hour later at a Washington hospital. The death was classified a homicide by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to pursue charges against Byrd, who said he feared for his life when the 5'2" Babbitt began climbing into the window.
The shooting triggered a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government brought by Judicial Watch Inc. on behalf of widower Aaron Babbitt and his late wife’s estate. The DOJ secured a change of venue from Babbitt’s hometown of San Diego to the friendly confines of federal district court in Washington, D.C. Judicial Watch is appealing the change of venue. The suit is proceeding into discovery.
As that litigation and the extensive investigation that underpins it begin their long journey through the federal courts, questions have grown about the identities of more than a dozen material witnesses who either took part in rioting near the Speaker’s Lobby entrance or captured video that could be valuable evidence in the shooting. Frick and Frack are prominent on that list.
The list of unidentified material witnesses (see chart) includes #RedOnRedGlasses (second from top left), a provocateur captured on video apparently launching a long two-by-four like a javelin through a window at the Senate Wing Door at 2:12 p.m., creating the first breach of the Capitol Building.
Open-source videos reviewed by Blaze News from the hallways near the main U.S. House entrance show #RedOnRed attempting to kick in heavy wooden office doors. He ended up in the front line at the Speaker’s Lobby entrance. Babbitt nearly landed on his feet when she fell back to the floor, mortally wounded. Despite ample video evidence of his acts — and clear video views of his face — the man has not been publicly identified or arrested by the FBI.
#MrFlyEyes (upper right) attempted to kick in the Speaker’s Lobby doors after three Capitol Police officers abandoned their post guarding the entrance, video showed. His phone indicated he was capturing video during the melee.
#PushyKeffiyeh and #NoProHelmet (lower left) operated at least four cameras during and after the shooting. It is not known if their video — or footage captured by potentially dozens of others — was sought or obtained by police.
Frick and Frack
The somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference to the pair of key witnesses as “Frick and Frack” is drawn from 20th century American pop culture.
A world-famous comedic skating duo known as Frick and Frack performed spectacular on-ice feats for tens of millions of U.S. fans from 1939 until late 1953. Their ice-folly antics and derring-do seemed to defy the laws of physics. Their on-rink names have since become synonymous with a closely matched set or a pair of inseparable friends.
At the Capitol, the 21st-century Frick and Frack were always within feet of each other during a crucial two-hour span on Jan. 6, Capitol Police security video revealed. When crowds of protesters pressed around them, Frick held onto Frack’s backpack to make sure they did not get separated in Capitol hallways.
Despite their ample presence on closed-circuit security cameras and open-source video, Frick and Frack do not appear on the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted page or the “Perp Sheet” page maintained by the online sleuths of Sedition Hunters. However, Frick is listed as Insider 2047 and Frack is Insider 2325 on the Sedition Hunters' list of 3,268 “Sedition Insiders” who entered the Capitol.
Sedition Hunters added a page devoted to Frack on March 4 that included nine photographs. That page, however, is not hot-linked to Frack’s thumbnail photo on the Sedition Insiders page. A reader would have to search the site by insider number or hashtag (#BehindTheLineGuy) to find the detail page.
Neither page shows that Frack has been identified by law enforcement. According to Sedition Hunters, 815 people on the insiders list have been identified but not arrested.
On social media, Sedition Hunters published Frack’s photo with a green “Identified” label on it but did not provide his name.
When questioned on July 21 by X user Silvio Costa about the identity of Frick and Frack, Sedition Hunters posted: “Why do you assume they are not Trump supporters?? I mean seriously?? The guy in the red hat is a family nurse practitioner that lives in California. What evil do you think he is up to[?]”
When Costa asked how Sedition Hunters knew the man is a “family nurse practitioner,” he did not get a response. Elsewhere in the same thread, Sedition Hunters wrote, “The FBI knows exactly who these two men are.” The post did not indicate how Sedition Hunters was aware of this.
Blaze News reached out to Sedition Hunters for more information but did not receive a reply by press time.
Based on video and photo evidence from Jan. 6, Frack appeared to be about 35 years old and 6 feet tall with a husky build, dark hair, and a thick, dark beard. Frick was about 55, 5'7" tall, balding with a grey mustache, and slimmer build but with a potbelly.
According to video, Frick threw off his primary role as an observer at the bottom of the Northwest Steps by leaning police bicycle-rack barricades against the massive balustrade to help protesters climb onto the stone railing and move up to the Capitol. This is what Jan. 6 prosecutors have typically labeled as participation in a riot or “storming the Capitol.”
Video released by the U.S. Department of Justice showed Frick placing two such makeshift ladders in place. He also handed up what appeared to be a piece of lumber to rioters above.
Similar battering rams were used in various places on the Capitol grounds to smash windows on Jan. 6, including the one to the right of the Senate Wing Door just after 2:10 p.m.
Frack also apparently placed a section of bicycle rack against the side of the stairway that was used by dozens of people to climb onto the balustrade. Video shot by journalist Ford Fischer showed Frack grabbing and handing two sections of bike-rack barrier up to protesters 10 feet above him.
Frack took a long section of heavy cardboard tubing as if to hand it up to those standing above him, but he leaned the ramrod against the balustrade instead, video showed. A similar-looking tube was used to smash windows adjacent to the Lower West Terrace tunnel later that day.
Bodycam footage from an unknown MPD officer walking nearby at 2:03 p.m. showed Frick and Frack pausing their activity at the balustrade to watch brawls that broke out between rioters and police just north of the West Plaza. This included hand-to-hand combat, with some rioters trying to wrestle riot sticks from police and others discharging bear spray at officers.
A three-man undercover team from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Electronic Surveillance Unit was in this same area a short time later, according to video from one of the officers leaked on the video platform Rumble in March 2023. They walked up the Northwest Steps about 10 minutes after Frick and Frack.
Investigator Nicholas Tomasula captured video on a GoPro Hero 8 camera as he climbed onto the balustrade and went up the Northwest Steps toward the Capitol. Video shows he encouraged protesters to keep going and took part in crowd chants — so much so that federal prosecutors were later forced to admit that he acted as a provocateur in the west side crowd.
Surveillance Unit members Detective Michael Callahan and Detective Ricardo Leiva ascended the Northwest Steps just a few strides behind Babbitt, who was captured on security video nearing the Upper West Terrace at 2:21 p.m.
Earlier, Leiva was heard on video predicting that someone would get shot that afternoon, according to an August 2023 court filing by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope. According to Pope’s court filing, Leiva’s five-minute cellphone video from his walk up the Northwest Steps was blacked out and the audio was garbled.
Leiva told MPD internal affairs investigators that when he saw a rioter breaking a Capitol window, he approached him and said, “Hey, what’s up, man, you’re doing an amazing job, awesome, awesome, awesome,” Pope’s court filing said.
On their journey from the West Plaza to the Capitol, Frick and Frack proceeded to the nearby scaffolding erected to support seating for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. Open-source video used in a Jan. 6 criminal case and reviewed by Blaze News showed the men shielding their eyes from tear gas that swirled around them on the plaza at around 2 p.m.
Moments later, video shot by convicted Jan. 6 provocateur John Sullivan showed the men climbing the steps under the scaffolding.
Northwest Steps
Eventually, two streams of protesters inside and outside the scaffolding coalesced into a kinetic force that rolled through the police line on the upper Northwest Steps at 2:09 p.m., security video showed. After the initial wave of protesters cleared the way, Frick and Frack walked onto the Upper West Terrace at 2:10 p.m.
Capitol Police security video from camera 0925 — Upper Terrace West — showed Frack and Frick walked through the field of view at 2:12 p.m.
While Frack walked out of camera view and proceeded to a sub-terrace that overlooks the Capitol lawn, Frick threw his arms up in the air as if celebrating the huge crowds approaching the Capitol from the west, video showed. The pair’s movements were also captured from above by camera 0908 — West Dome.
The men entered the Senate Wing Door at 2:13:54 p.m., making them among the first protesters to breach the Capitol Building.
Frick almost immediately moved to the right and stooped down to pick up a heavy wooden stand that the first rioters kicked over before they jumped through a window into the lobby, security video showed.
The men joined a stream of protesters heading south toward the Crypt. The tightly packed group stood off against a thin line of Capitol Police in the Crypt, chanting slogans and berating officers for not moving out of the way. After about 10 minutes, protesters plowed past the overwhelmed officers to the other side of the Crypt.
The group eventually ascended one level via a winding staircase and continued toward Statuary Hall, the Great Rotunda, and, eventually, the U.S. House of Representatives, video showed. The large group included dozens of protesters who eventually ended up in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby.
Toward the Speaker’s Lobby
Frick and Frack shadowed the crowd from the Crypt and eventually reached the Will Rogers corridor near the main House door. En route, they filmed protesters in the Great Rotunda, Statuary Hall, and the jam-packed Statuary Hall Connector.
The unruly crowd in the Will Rogers corridor pushed through the police line at 2:36 p.m. and filled in the small hallway directly outside the House Chamber. Babbitt lingered along one wall, checking her phone but staying out of the fray.
Just around the corner, Frack physically intercepted Zachary Alam, who would shortly lead a rioting and vandalism spree just outside the Speaker’s Lobby. Alam broke away from the crowd and approached Capitol Police Sgt. Nelson Vargas, according to video captured by protester and Jan. 6 defendant Paul Kovacik.
“Hey! Hey! Hey, buddy,” Alam shouted as he leaned in to read the officer’s name tag. “Nelson Vargas, where is the bathroom?”
Frack placed his right hand on Alam’s upper chest and led him away from Sgt. Vargas, the video showed. An audible off-camera voice said, “I don’t think we will.”
Alam continued down the hallway toward the Speaker’s Lobby, while Frick and Frack walked into the Sam Rayburn Room on a brief detour. Video shot by independent journalist Tayler Hansen showed Frick taking Frack’s photograph standing next to a giant painting of President George Washington.
The men then trailed Babbitt past the East Stairs and down the hallway toward the Speaker’s Lobby.
Babbitt and Hansen were the first protesters to turn the final corner and approach the double doors at the Speaker’s Lobby entrance. They were preceded just minutes before by Capitol Police Sgt. Timothy Lively and Capitol Police Officers Kyle Yetter and Christopher Lanciano, the trio who took up guarding the doors to the Speaker’s Lobby.
Frack entered the hallway with Frick holding on to the bottom strap of his tan backpack. They positioned themselves near the front of the crowd as dozens of protesters quickly packed the small hallway. Frack held up a cell phone — first in his left hand and later switched between hands — and trained it on the USCP officers as the crowd’s behavior turned bellicose and ugly.
Alam — who was recently sentenced to eight years in prison on Jan. 6 convictions — placed himself front and center in the bedlam, punching the glass in between Lively and Yetter. Babbitt — a former military policewoman in the Air Force and Air National Guard — seemed to sense the brewing trouble and shouted at the police trio to “call f*****g help!”
After Alam punched the door between Lively and Lanciano, Lanciano shoved him backward. Hansen shouted at Alam, “Chill out! Chill the f**k out, bro! Hey, chill out!”
An unidentified man known only by the hashtag #HuskyMario pleaded with the officers to let the crowd pass. “We don’t want to hurt nobody. We just want to go into the House!” he shouted. Another rioter known by the hashtag #2BlueJacket got within inches of Lanciano’s face with a two-handed middle-finger taunt.
The crowd was out of control.
Taking a black helmet handed to him by rioter Christopher Grider, Alam began smashing the windows of the entrance. In the far left hallway corner, Sullivan lobbied one of the USCP officers to leave the area. Babbitt tried to confront the violent Alam, but he brushed her aside, video showed.
Frack appeared to make several hand gestures at the officers. His gaze seemed to focus on Lanciano on the right. Frack’s right hand made a sweeping motion and pointed down to the stairway behind them along the wall. It is difficult to hear whether he said anything to the officers because a nearby rioter kept bellowing, “Break it down!”
Frick grabbed the arm of protester Linwood Robinson Sr. and appeared to motion for him to step back and switch places, video showed. Shortly after, Frick led Frack down the stairs to a landing, almost colliding with a four-man Capitol Police Containment and Emergency Response Team ascending from the Hall of Columns.
The CERT unit — similar to a SWAT team — was responding to a radio call of “shots fired, House floor,” broadcast just before 2:43 p.m. That call was later determined to be a false alarm.
It does not appear that Frack communicated with the first CERT member, Steven Robbs, except to put his hands up. He spoke to the next two officers — CERT leader Don Smith and Officer Brandon Sikes, video showed.
Frack pointed up to someone in the crowd while addressing Smith. On video shot by Frack, a voice was heard saying, “Watch the fuzzy-hat guy” — a reference to Alam and his floppy-ear Canada Goose cap.
As Officers Lanciano, Lively, and Yetter descended the stairs, Frack twice put his hand on Yetter’s back in an apparent show of support, video showed. Frack wore a wedding ring on his left hand and a Punisher pinky ring on his right hand. Punisher is a Marvel character popular in comics, military, and law enforcement circles.
As the three officers passed Frack, the sound of a shot rang out when Babbitt was gunned down at 2:44 p.m. The officers began going back up the stairs.
Video shot by Montoya and Frack showed that Alam bolted down the stairs after the gunshot. After briefly grabbing Alam by the arm, Robbs let him go and moved up the stairs to render medical aid to Babbitt.
For a time, Frack, Frick, and Alam stood behind the police line as the CERT officers scanned the crowd for possible threats. Alam was seen on video going through his backpack, although he did not change his outfit as some on social media have claimed.
In a transcribed interview with the FBI in January 2022, CERT leader Smith described two men on the landing who kept “trying to get my attention.”
“He goes, ‘Keep an eye on this guy.’ The guy that I had brought down, and he had glasses like that, he’s a skinny dude, um, short hair,” Smith said. “And he said ... ‘Looks like he’s trying to grab, get ready to grab — stuff off your vest.’”
The scene on the stairs just before and after the shooting was dangerous and tactically unsound, according to former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, who spent five years on an FBI SWAT team.
“You never want anyone who hasn’t been vetted as a friendly behind you,” Friend told Blaze News. “And even then, you leave someone with them."
“They deployed a tactical team in a crowd-control situation. That’s not something they train [for],” Friend said. “But even if that’s deemed appropriate — such as an active-shooter scenario — the team would stick together and clear areas piece by piece. If they encountered anyone hostile, they would not bypass that threat.”
Smith said he asked the two men to help control the crowd and keep a watchful eye on Alam.
“I turned to these two guys, I said, ‘Look, they’re going to listen to you more than they are going to listen to me,'” Smith told the FBI. “I said, ‘Please, can you plead with them to go ahead and back up so we can go ahead and help this, you know, help this girl.’”
After a few moments, Frack descended the stairs to near the second landing, then turned around, looked up, and screamed, “Back up! Back up! You guys, back up!” according to a short segment of his heavily redacted cellphone video obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed by Blaze News.
Frack returned to the top landing before three Capitol Police CERT officers carried Babbitt down the stairs head-first to the Hall of Columns at the South Door.
In the initial chaos after Babbitt was shot, some rioters in the hallway obstructed police efforts to back the crowd up. Some bellowed at officers with the mistaken accusation that one of them had shot Babbitt. It was later learned that the plainclothes Lt. Byrd inched out of his hidden position just inside the doorway and fired one shot at Babbitt as she climbed into a broken-out glass side panel on the north side of the doors.
A Capitol Police bicycle officer angrily forced California physician Dr. Austin Brendlan Harris to abandon his efforts at rendering medical aid to the dying Babbitt. The officer shoved Harris down the hallway. The two briefly shouted at each other and scuffled, video showed.
Harris turned on the officer and said, “My trauma bag!” He was then handed his medical kit that was still sitting near Babbitt. He shouted, “You’re protecting the real monsters and you’re shooting the people!”
Three CERT officers picked up Babbitt and awkwardly carried her down the steps head-first with her backpack still hanging from her shoulders. Frack and Frick watched from the top landing as Babbitt’s massive internal gunshot wound left drops of blood on the stairs, according to video obtained from journalist Sam Montoya and reviewed by Blaze News.
Protesters vented their rage as they watched Babbitt being carried away. “Are you kidding me? She’s f*****g dead, you piece of s**t! She’s dead!” one man bellowed. “You guys are f*****g heroes!” another taunted.
Montoya was noticeably emotional while recording the scene.
“This is so sad,” he said on camera. “I cannot believe I am witnessing this in the U.S. Capitol. I cannot believe I am witnessing this. A woman was shot and is dead."
“I don’t know her name,” Montoya said, his voice cracking, “but she had a family! I just pray that this ends peacefully. No one else needs to get hurt. Nobody needs to get hurt.”
‘Officer-involved event‘
A large contingent of MPD officers in fluorescent yellow jackets descended on the hallway to remove the rioters and restore order. Frick and Frack remained behind the police line on the steps. Shortly before 3 p.m., they apparently approached USCP Deputy Chief Eric Waldow and Capitol Police K-9 technician Bruce Acheson to present themselves as witnesses to the shooting.
Word of that development quickly went out over Capitol Police radio.
At 2:59 p.m., Waldow asked for the crime scene unit, someone from the Office of Professional Responsibility, and the Criminal Investigations Section to meet with two witnesses to an “officer-involved event that took place at the House gallery.”
The wording of that dispatch is significant because after he shot Babbitt at 2:44 p.m., Lt. Byrd made a false claim over the radio that he was being shot at and was preparing to return fire.
As dozens of heavily armed tactical officers from the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and other agencies rushed into the Capitol after that radio call, Lt. Byrd did not update his dispatch to indicate that he was the shooter or state whether the shooting scene was secure.
Officers outside and around the corner from the Speaker’s Lobby still had their sidearms drawn 30 minutes after the Babbitt shooting. Tactical teams swept each floor of the Capitol with M4 rifles alternating between a “low-ready” posture and “on target,” security video showed.
Canine technician Acheson escorted Frick and Frack to the Hall of Columns and out the South Door, security video showed.
All of the other protesters and rioters from the Speaker’s Lobby hallway — including Alam — exited the Capitol via the East Front House Door, according to a security camera over the entrance. As far as is publicly known, none of them was detained for questioning about the shooting, and none of their witness accounts appeared in the MPD or U.S. DOJ shooting investigation reports.
Secret meeting
A security camera that covers the South Barricade Plaza captured Acheson with Frick and Frack emerging from behind District of Columbia Fire and EMS Engine 6 at 3:02 p.m. Acheson led them to the USCP South Barricade kiosk, where they stood awaiting the team of officers summoned on the radio a few minutes prior.
An unmarked squad car with three Capitol Police officers who would question Frack and Frick pulled in near the South Barricade at 3:02:08 p.m., crossing paths with D.C. Fire and EMS Rescue 10 with Babbitt on board.
Special Agent Richard Larity, Sgt. Sara Smithers, and a female USCP special agent emerged from the squad and walked to the police kiosk to meet Acheson with the two witnesses. They escorted Frack and Frick to the squad car. At 3:08 p.m., Frack got into the back seat, where he spent the next 27 minutes, video showed.
While Smithers and her colleague interviewed Frack, Larity spoke to Frick outside the vehicle. At 3:16 p.m., Sgt. Michael Sanchez of the Capitol Police Office of Professional Responsibility stopped at the squad car to speak to Larity, security video showed.
Just before 3:36 p.m., Frack emerged from the squad car. He and Frick shook the officers’ hands and walked away.
While Smithers went to meet Capitol Police crime scene officer Mark West to photograph and process the Babbitt crime scene, Frick and Frack stood against a stone wall along the sidewalk, checking their phones.
Capitol Police did not respond to a Blaze News request for comment about the interview or what their officers were told by Frick and Frack.
At 3:42 p.m., Frick handed what appeared to be a two-way radio to Frack, who spoke into it numerous times over the next two minutes, security video showed. Frack looked at a street sign at the intersection of Capitol Plaza Southeast and Independence Avenue Southeast, then walked back toward the Capitol.
The interaction of Frick and Frack with Capitol Police was documented in a one-page supplement included with the MPD’s Babbitt shooting report. Described as “Attachment 19,” the summary said a Capitol Police special agent met with a witness at about 3:15 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. The interview was not recorded, and the witness was not identified.
The summary said the witness showed the special agent a video clip and provided a copy of the file with the proviso that “he was willing to email the longer version in the future.” Judicial Watch obtained a heavily redacted copy of the video from Metropolitan Police as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2021.
The video is truncated and does not include the portions Frack filmed before the shooting that could shed light on what he or others said to the USCP officers. It is not known whether Frack spoke to police investigators or the FBI again or if he provided the rest of the video he shot on Jan. 6.
The men proceeded to Independence Avenue at 4 p.m. and walked west. A Capitol Police security camera atop the Rayburn House Office Building last showed the men on the plaza of the Hubert Humphrey Building at 4:24 p.m.
Based on how the DOJ has prosecuted more than 1,560 other cases, the behavior of Frick and Frack would likely be classified as incitement and rioting at the bottom of the Northwest Steps, where they apparently enabled dozens of people to climb onto the staircase and proceed to the Capitol.
Given their early entrance into the Capitol, mere minutes after the breach of the Senate Wing Door and windows, there is a good chance they could have been charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, a 20-year felony count that was all but taken off the table by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark June 28 decision.
Their behavior at a minimum would draw what defense attorneys call the “standard four,” basic misdemeanor charges for alleged trespassing, disorderly conduct, and “parading” at the Capitol.
Since the men do not appear to be a target of Capitol Police, the FBI, or the DOJ, the explanation for their presence and actions before, during, and after the fatal Babbitt shooting will likely fall to the attorneys at Judicial Watch and its $30 million Babbitt lawsuit.
The FBI and DOJ have said they will continue making Jan. 6 arrests leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Trump on Jan. 20, 2025.
Blaze News contacted the FBI, Capitol Police, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for more information on the men. The Capitol Police did not respond by press time.
Asked for comment, the FBI National Press Office told Blaze News: "In keeping with DOJ policy, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation."
Daniel Ball, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., said: “We don’t comment on the existence or status of investigations into specific individuals.”
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