Just over one year ago, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation removing the word “lynching” from the state’s criminal code, after a black activist was arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest and hit with a charge of felony lynching. Since 1933, California’s penal code had used the word lynching to describe the crime of attempting to seize someone from police custody.

On Tuesday, another Black Lives Matter activist was sentenced for doing exactly that. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Black Lives Matter organizer Jasmine Richards was convicted and sentenced to 90 days in jail after she tried to incite a riot as police took into custody a woman who allegedly left a restaurant without paying. (Supporters say she was trying to “de-arrest” the woman.)

The word “lynching” may have been removed from California’s penal code, but that didn’t stop a huge number of protesters from gathering both inside and outside the courtroom where “political prisoner” Richards was sentenced.

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The Trump Train didn’t make a stop, but the Black Men for Bernie Bus rolled up to the curb.

The bottom line?

 

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Tags: Black lives matterfelony lynchingJasmine RichardsJerry Brownkiller copssentencing