Current Events > Biden DOJ continues labeling BLM protesters terrorists

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https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-biden-plays-hardball-with-black-lives-matter-20211019-37fgfctxorhzpcvvnpf7wqrmh4-story.html

This time last year, during the final presidential debate, Joe Biden promised to fundamentally change the administration of criminal justice if elected. That change is much needed on issues ranging from police misconduct to excessive sentences to racial disparities in arrests, charges and punishment.

A case pending in Brooklyn, however, flies in the face of the presidents stated commitment both to racial justice and righting the wrongs of excessive punishment. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York are continuing to pursue the Trump-era approach of labeling Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists.

Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman are two lawyers who were arrested in Brooklyn in May 2020 while protesting for racial justice. (I taught Mattis at NYU Law, but I am not on his defense team.) Mattis and Rahman allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at an empty NYPD car during a night of mass protest after George Floyds murder.

Mattis and Rahman can hardly be called peaceful protesters; trying to destroy a police car, even if empty, crosses the line. So I am not questioning the decision to bring criminal charges. But the decision to bring federal rather than state charges is a different matter. No one was in the car, and no one was harmed. A case involving this kind of property damage would typically be pursued by a local district attorney, and first-time offenders like Mattis and Rahman would likely receive little if no jail time for their offense.

Instead, federal prosecutors under the Trump administration charged Mattis and Rahman with seven felony counts that collectively carried a 45-year mandatory minimum sentence. Theirs was one of at least 326 federal prosecutions initiated by the Trump DOJ over alleged conduct during the Black Lives Matter protests but it was one of the earliest and most aggressive of those prosecutions.

This week, Mattis and Rahman will be taking a plea deal to resolve their case. The plea avoids the extreme and indefensible mandatory minimum sentence that attached to the original charges. But prosecutors, even under this new administration, have made clear that they will seek a terrorism enhancement at Mattis and Rahmans sentencing an extraordinarily rare and harsh tool that applies only when the offense was calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct and that the government has historically sought in cases that did, or could have easily, resulted in mass death and destruction.

Labeling Mattis and Rahman as terrorists is a tactic that one would expect from the Trump administration as part of its political strategy to diminish the calls for racial justice in the wake of police violence. It is shocking to see prosecutors dedicated to equal treatment under the law seeking that label in this case. In the past, the DOJ sparingly used the terrorism enhancement because of the extreme punishment it carries. The enhancement can increase up to 10-fold the prison sentence of a defendant, adding decades of incarceration.

In this case, the enhancement could mean a 10-year sentence for Mattis and Rahman despite the fact that neither have any criminal record, no one was hurt, and neither had any intent to hurt anyone through their actions. Theirs is a case of property damage to an abandoned police vehicle that should have never been a federal case in the first place.

Congress first established the terrorism enhancement in 1995 to punish international terrorists, later expanding it to cover domestic terrorism after the Oklahoma City bombings, and then again after 9/11. That history speaks for itself about the kinds of cases to which Congress meant the enhancement to apply.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York seem to understand this. They are not seeking such an enhancement in a similar case involving the burning of a police vehicle. The only difference with this case is that Mattis and Rahman committed their alleged act of destruction during racial justice protests. How can that be the line that turns their act into terrorism? For that matter, how can prosecutors justify calling this terrorism when participants in the Capitol Riot cases, where some defendants physically assaulted police officers, have reached deals with prosecutors that treat their cases as misdemeanors?

Breon Peace, President Bidens recently confirmed pick as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, should step in and not have prosecutors under his watch seek an enhancement and a sentence that does not apply to the reality of this case. Doing so would send a message that the Biden administration is serious about turning the page on Trumps politicization of racial justice protestors, and it would restore the terrorism enhancements rightful place as an extreme punishment that is reserved for conduct and criminal intent that deserves it.

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Just a neolib doing neolib shit

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Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

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thanks Obama

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Doe posted...

Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

Yes but if they are part of BLM they are peaceful protesters even though they burned places of business down and looted others.

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Article: They totally did crimes and should be punished, but at the state level, not federally.

Rational People: Clearly people are saying they did no crimes!

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Doe posted...

Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

Dude, molotovs are weak.

Half the time they don't even kill everyone in the room and you end up setting yourself on fire anyway.

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Doe posted...

Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

Didn't read the article huh

This is a property damage issue, not terrorism. The car the molotov was thrown at was abandoned

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Doe posted...

Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

And as the article notes, similar cases unrelated to protests have not resulted in terrorism charges
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/brooklyn-residents-plead-guilty-conspiring-commit-arson-connection-burning-nypd

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Alteres posted...

Dude, molotovs are weak.

Half the time they don't even kill everyone in the room and you end up setting yourself on fire anyway.

Oh I guess terrorism only applies to really successful terrorism

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Doe posted...

Oh I guess terrorism only applies to really successful terrorism

Terrorism applies to whatever people want it to apply to, as we've seen over the years.

Depending on where you stood, incredible terrorism was committed upon a particular country during "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

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Doe posted...

Uhhhh the charge is throwing a molotov cocktail (AKA, a firebomb). It's not like people holding signs are getting charged for terrorism

RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

Yes but if they are part of BLM they are peaceful protesters even though they burned places of business down and looted others.

Learn to read.

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Using anything more than fists during a violent encounter during a protest or political movement falling under terrorism seems fine by me. Fire is super fucking dangerous, so fuck them. That the car was empty means fucking nothing.

Antifar posted...

an extraordinarily rare and harsh tool that applies only when the offense was calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct

I mean.... what would you call fire bombing a police car to protest the police? Police act in service to the law, which is an extension of the government.

I find it pretty audacious that this person is advocating "little if no jail time" for the offense. Torch a police car worth tens of thousands of dollars? No big deal, slap on the wrist. Is that really the message he wants to send? Destruction of somebody else's property should be a big deal. Especially when it's done to try to force changes to the law or government.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

I mean.... what would you call fire bombing a police car to protest the police? Police act in service to the law, which is an extension of the government.

I find it pretty audacious that this person is advocating "little if no jail time" for the offense. Torch a police car worth tens of thousands of dollars? No big deal, slap on the wrist. Is that really the message he wants to send? Destruction of somebody else's property should be a big deal. Especially when it's done to try to force changes to the law or government.

Then that literally can't be terrorism. Terrorism is violence, or the threat of violence (can include cyber violence), against civilian targets for a political purpose. Cops are not civilians.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

I find it pretty audacious that this person is advocating "little if no jail time" for the offense. Torch a police car worth tens of thousands of dollars? No big deal, slap on the wrist.

As noted in the article, similar cases have been treated as simple arson, with a max sentence of 5 years.

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Antifar posted...

As noted in the article, similar cases have been treated as simple arson, with a max sentence of 5 years.

Yeah, terrorism laws exist primarily to railroad people the state doesn't like, essentially.

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hitokoriX posted...

Terrorism is violence, or the threat of violence (can include cyber violence), against civilian targets for a political purpose. Cops are not civilians.

Are you just making shit up? Terrorism doesn't have to target civilians to be terrorism.

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hitokoriX posted...

Cops are not civilians.

The case could be made that they're an occupying force.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Are you just making shit up? Terrorism doesn't have to target civilians to be terrorism.

Speaking of making shit up.

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I don't see any definition of terrorism limiting it to civilians. The definition generated by Google at best has "especially against civilians," while the FBI's page makes no mention of it whatsoever.

Democrats also want to keep the status quo along with protecting their enforcers.

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Lol @ being buttmad that the shoe fits

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Throwing a molotov during the middle of a riot is absolutely terrorism.

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