Power

Black Lives Matter Activist Sentenced for ‘Lynching’ Released Due to Overcrowding

Jasmine “Abdullah” Richards was convicted earlier this month under a California statute known until recently as “felony lynching," a law that criminalizes “taking by means of a riot of another person from the lawful custody of a peace officer.”

Activists earlier this month denounced the sentence as a “mockery of our justice system.” More than 200 activists rallied outside the courthouse during the sentencing, according to reports, clapping and chanting “Free Jasmine.” genjusticeTV / YouTube

California Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine “Abdullah” Richards, who was sentenced to 90 days in jail on a felony charge of “lynching,” was released Saturday from Lynwood’s Century Regional Detention Facility due to jail overcrowding, a Black Lives Matter organizer told Rewire Tuesday.

“Her release is hugely important to Black Lives Matter as she is one of our core activists and lead for Black Lives Matter, Pasadena chapter,” said Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter organizer who said she met Richards nearly two years ago in Ferguson, where the death of the unarmed Black man Michael Brown galvanized activists across the nation.

Richards was convicted earlier this month under a California statute known until recently as “felony lynching,” a law that criminalizes “taking by means of a riot of another person from the lawful custody of a peace officer.” Under the law, two or more people are defined as a “riot.”

The charges stem from when Richards, founder of Black Lives Matter Pasadena, attempted to intervene in a woman’s arrest following a Black Lives Matter peace march last August.

Abdullah explained to Rewire that Richards had a protest-related misdemeanor charge that had to be paid at the time of her release.

On June 7, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu sentenced 29-year-old Richards to 90 days in county jail, with 18 days of credit for time served; three years of probation; and a year of anger management.

“The fact that she was also sentenced to three years probation … is clearly an attempt to hinder her activism,” Abdullah told Rewire Tuesday by email. “We will appeal her conviction and the movement will not be deterred, but will redouble our commitment to ending state-sanctioned violence.”

Activists earlier this month denounced the sentence as a “mockery of our justice system.” More than 200 activists rallied outside the courthouse during the sentencing, according to reports, clapping and chanting “Free Jasmine.”

Activists had called Richards’ arrest a “perverse” application of a law “intended to stop lynch mobs from forcibly removing detainees from police custody and engaging in public murders of Black people.” An online petition urging Lu to free Richards had gathered more than 80,000 signatures by the time of the sentencing.

Richards was the “first African-American ever to be convicted of the charge” of lynching in the United States, according to Pasadena Now. Activists called Richards the Black Lives Matter movement’s first political prisoner.

“To take this law, that was used allegedly to protect Black people from being lynched, and to turn around and use this law against a Black person who is actually speaking about the lynchings, the serial lynchings, that are going on at the hands of police, not just in Pasadena, but all over this country, is more than ironic, it’s disgusting,” Richards’ attorney, Nana Gyamfi, told Democracy Now! prior to the sentencing.

After the sentencing, Richards addressed the crowd gathered outside the Pasadena courthouse via her attorney’s speakerphone, saying “Thank you guys,” and “I love everybody.”

Richards was arrested two days after a Black Lives Matter peace march, when authorities said she tried to intervene as police officers apprehended a young Black woman in the park. Richards was a key organizer of the march, where activists were demanding justice for Kendrec McDade, an unarmed 19-year-old Black teenager who was shot and killed by Pasadena police in 2012.

Video of the incident shows Richards and other activists trying to intercede on the woman’s behalf, with voices that can be heard saying to authorities, “she’s only 130 pounds” and “she’s a petite girl.”

Pasadena police Lt. Tracey Ibarra said, “When the officers attempted to detain her [the suspect] then part of the Black Lives Matter protest group attempted to intercede,” as Pasadena Now reported last September.

Richards was initially charged with inciting a riot, delaying and obstructing peace officers, child endangerment, and felony lynching, but all but the lynching charge was dropped before the trial.

Her attorney said she was convicted by a jury that was about half white, with no Black jurors, though Black people making up 13 percent of the population in Pasadena and 8 percent in Los Angeles County.