Black Activist Charged With Lynching | Black Youth Project
Maile Hampton, a 20 year-old activist in Sacramento, Ca., was charged with “lynching” for pulling a fellow activist away from a police officer.
Hampton was charged under an archaic 1933 California law that was created to prevent people from forcibly taking others from police custody in order to dole out vigilante justice.
Clearly the law was written to prevent people, most often black and Latino, from being murdered. But police are now using it to target anti-police violence activists.
“Based on how law enforcement has interacted with us and tried to get information, we know that they know that we are very intersectional in our activism and we are two young educated people of color,” Hampton told Alternet.
Hampton faces four years if convicted. The irony of a black woman being charged with lynching while protesting police violence is lost on no one.
Read more at the Guardian here. (Photo Credit: Maile Hampton/Answer Sacramento Facebook)
Editor’s Note: I do not know Maile personally, but I have marched with them and feel confident in vouching for them. Here’s what you can do to help:
1) Click here to sign the petition demanding that the Sacramento County District Attorney drop all charges against Maile Hampton now.
2) Contact the Sacramento County District Attorney and demand that the charges be dropped. Email daoffice@sacda.org and in your email CC both mayor@cityofsacramento.org and Sac@ANSWERcoalition.org.
3) Learn more about Maile’s case and get in touch with those working to fund her legal defense here.
are you fucking kidding me
White peoples have literally taken a law that prevents racism and used it for racism like damn
Sometimes I think about returning to America … then I read something like this.
Come to Scotland folks, we have the 21st century.
Why is Australia trying to be like these arseholes again?
