Hello Democrats and Progressives.
I used to be one of you. I still think my reasons for that were honorable, just as I think my reasons for deciding to go in another direction were just as honorable. We all have to live with ourselves before anything else.
So I came here with this issue, which really bothers me for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that the left, in my view, should be on this like white on rice and they are NOT. I have not heard a peep.
I know what this particular community is capable of. I have seen what it can do when it mobilizes.
I beg you, please help this woman.
I'll tell you who she is and how you can help on the jump.
That's Shaneen Allen and her two little kids.
Allen is a black single mother. She has two kids. She has no prior criminal record. Before her arrest, she worked as a phlebobotomist. She spent 40 days in jail before she was released on bail. She’s now facing a felony charge that, if convicted, would bring a three-year mandatory minimum prison term.
Three years. Three years away from her children, not to mention her career, and an eternal alteration of her future path in life.
Damn, she must have done something pretty horrible to deserve that, right?
Well...you tell me.
Last October, Shaneen Allen, 27, was pulled over in Atlantic County, N.J. The officer who pulled her over says she made an unsafe lane change. During the stop, Allen informed the officer that she was a resident of Pennsylvania and had a conceal carry permit in her home state. She also had a handgun in her car. Had she been in Pennsylvania, having the gun in the car would have been perfectly legal. But Allen was pulled over in New Jersey, home to some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States.
Okay, let's put this in perspective. It has been said that ignorance of the law is no excuse...
Allen lives in Philadelphia, right across the river from New Jersey. She has a Pennsylvania permit to carry a handgun. She thought it was recognized in New Jersey, just as it is recognized in over 30 other states. She was wrong. When she told the officer that she had the gun, she was arrested.
...but on the other hand...what about Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens?
When Ray Rice beat his wife unconscious in an elevator, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain agreed to put him in a diversion program for 1st-time offenders to keep him out of jail. But when Pennsylvania single mom Shaneen Allen was pulled over for a traffic violation and volunteered to a New Jersey police officer that she was carrying a legally-owned handgun with a Pennsylvania permit, the response of Donis and McClain was to deny her the same opportunity as Rice...Now she faces a felony conviction and a mandatory 42 months in prison. Both Donio and McClain have been unwilling to dismiss the charges, or send Allen to a pretrial diversion program. They seem to want to make an example of her."
So Ray Rice gets diversion, but Shaneen Allen gets three years in a cage?
Justify that to me.
So now that we've put things into perspective, someone explain to me why Ray Rice should get a diversion program while Shaneen Allen should spend three years in a cage apart from her kids. Please. I'd like to hear this.
Shaneen has a hell of a lawyer, though: dude name of Evan Nappen. She couldn't ask for better.
Between Evan Nappen and Daily Kos, I know Shaneen can stay with her children, and go on with her life.
If there's any reason she shouldn't, I'd like to hear it.
Thanks for listening. I could say more about class warfare and, "no victim no crime" if I had to - but I don't think I need to. I think this one speaks for itself.
You can write Chris Christie. You can write District Attorney Jim McClain.
If you're inclined to throw some ducets at this, do it here.
Do what thou wilt with this. I hope Daily Kos steps up.
Namaste...