The Video tells much of the tale, which occurred while anti-police violence activists marched countering a Pro-Police Rally that was happening nearby chanting "
Who do you protect? Who do you serve?"
Video.
As you can see a scuffle ensues as Officers grab one person and other protestors come to their aid. This is the report from the SacBee via RawStory.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Maile Hampton was taken into custody on charges of freeing a protester from police custody at a rally on Jan. 18. “Lynching” is actually the legal term associated with attempting to free a prisoner from police custody. Hampton is also charged with resisting arrest.
From what I've read in reports it appears that the arrest occurred police had told protestors to walk on the sidewalk, and some had not. Maile came to the aid of a fellow protestor and has been charged with "freeing a prisoner from police custody", which under the law is called "Lynching".
As additional protestors arrived at a Sacramento City Council Meeting to support Hampton shouting "Free Maile" - Mayor Kevin Johnson expressed sympathy for them, but also added this:
“It is never ok for someone to interfere with the police, or try to remove someone who is in police custody,” the mayor wrote. “It is also the right of citizens to protest peacefully & make their voices heard like during public comments @ City Council Meetings. During public comments last night I was shocked to learn, in CA removing someone from police custody is defined as ‘lynching.’ The word ‘lynching’ has a long and painful history in our nation. It’s time to remove its use in CA Law.”
In the century past, mobs of people felt that the wheels of justice turned far too slowly for their tastes. They would go to the local courthouse, remove a suspect from custody who they had decided was guilty beyond a doubt and therefore no trail or jury was required and then proceed to hang that person publicly in a nearby tree. During most of the 20th Century this happened to nearly 5,000
men women and children, the vast majority of them being African American.
The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites being lynched between 1882 and 1968, with the annual peak occurring in the 1890s, at a time of economic stress in the South and political suppression.[3] A five year study published by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2015 found that nearly 4,000 black men, women and children were lynched in the Southern states alone between 1877 and 1950
I find it beyond repugnant that an African-American woman can be charged with "Lynching" for being involved in an arrest, that at best was an over-reaction to what could at worst be termed "Jaywalking". Yet that is apparently the America we continue to live in, 15 years into the 21st Century - which is particularly galling when you view the tape it appears that the people who may have acted illegally, and in vindictive retaliation, were the police.
You can find more on the ongoing Anti-Police Violence Rallies in Sacramento via this Wordpress Blog: https://politicsfromthesac.wordpress.com/...