In more than 20% of the cases against protesters, the charges come with mandatory minimum sentences, according to the report. The Movement for Black Lives recommends granting amnesty for those who were charged and abolishing local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces to “mitigate the harms” of federal prosecutions in which they claim defendants were over-charged. It not only harms the individual but also their families, organizations, and communities.”Ī Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the report. “Incarceration often leads to income and job loss along with the separation of families. “Every day Americans are now facing prison sentences in more distant locations, higher maximums and mandatory minimums, and no chance of parole as a result of exercising their First Amendment rights,” Princess Masilungan of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility Clinic said in a news release. It was first reported by The Associated Press.įederal officials filed a litany of charges against racial justice protesters over five months after Floyd’s death, including 105 for arson, 49 for civil disorder, 45 for assault against an officer and 30 felon-in-possession of a weapon cases.Īccording to the report, the “vast majority of charges brought were for non-violent offenses or offenses that were potentially hazardous but were restricted to property destruction, not violence against people.”įederal arson charges carry a minimum sentence of five years in prison, and offenders can be incarcerated anywhere in the country, while in state court there are different degrees of arson charges, including some that can be classified as misdemeanors carrying up to one year in a local jail, according to the report. The report, which focused on the period of nationwide civil unrest sparked by Floyd’s death in May 2020 at the hands of police in Minneapolis, was released this week. and Malcolm X.Īccording to the report, this was done “in a deliberate bid to infiltrate, penetrate, disorganize, and disrupt the Black movements for rights, power, and freedom, and to preserve the established white supremacist order.” Edgar Hoover, officials spied on and interrogated leaders associated with the Black Panther Party as well as Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr. For instance, at the direction of former FBI Director J. The report also contends that federal officials have tried to suppress Black social movements going back decades. It was co-authored by CUNY School of Law’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility Clinic. “This persecution resulted in hundreds of organizers and activists facing years in federal prison with no chance of parole,” the report read. The report found that more than 90% of federal cases against Black Lives Matter protesters could have been charged in state court – and that in 88% of those cases, the federal charges carried more severe penalties than similar state charges. The Justice Department targeted more than 300 protesters by charging them with federal crimes for their roles during the civil unrest last summer after the murder of George Floyd, according to a new report from The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of Black advocacy groups.
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