A year after lawyer Urooj Rahman and her accomplice pleaded guilty to arson attack during the George Floyd Protests in Brooklyn, her lawyers have now blamed the act on alcohol and unprocessed trauma as a Muslim in post 9/11 America.
As per reports, Rahman accepted a new plea deal in June this year and is now pushing for a reduced sentence. On September 9, her lawyers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court that she was in a highly intoxicated state after consuming vodka on an empty stomach.
They suggested that Rahman and her accomplice Colinford Mattis set a police van on fire on May 30, 2020, near the 88th Precinct stationhouse in Fort Greene, to express their anger toward cops who are prejudiced against the African-American community.
Havent seen a filing this amazing in a while.
— ArchIndie (@E44Teddy) September 30, 2022
Urooj Rahman is attorney who blew up police car w Molotov cocktail during Summer of Riots 2020. She’s been convicted and is awaiting sentencing…
She argues that she shouldnt have to go to jail at all🤣 pic.twitter.com/EzNPwh8BLV
“Tossing the Molotov cocktail was a way of expressing anger at those police officers around the country for whom black lives did not matter…It was an act of protest intended to avoid exposing others to harm,” Rahman’s lawyers claimed.
Besides, her lawyers also pinned the blame on a number of mitigating factors such as abusive relationships, witnessing injustices in the USA and abroad, and the trauma of being a Muslim in post-9/11 America.
They also cited her exposure to injustices to low-income tenants, who are on the brink of eviction, and the plight of refugees in Athens and Instanbul to rationalise her act of tossing a Molotov cocktail on a police van.
Citing her therapy sessions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Rahman’s lawyers also alleged that the arson attack was “a marked deviation from her otherwise exemplary life.”
Reportedly, the prosecutors junked the list of excuses and sought a strict sentence against Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis. They pointed out how the duo was equipped with 2 explosives, one of which was handed to a passerby.
According to Patrick Lynch, the head of the Police Benevolent Association, Rahman does not deserve mercy. ” He emphasised, “She remains committed to a violent anti-police ideology and continues to baselessly smear police officers in her bid for a lighter sentence. She must receive the heaviest sentence the law allows.”
The Background of the Case
On May 25, 2020, a 46-year-old African-American man, George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on the former’s neck for 7 long minutes until his body became unresponsive.
A shopkeeper had called the cops on Floyd for allegedly trying to pass a ‘potential counterfeit bill’. Despite the victim complaining about not being able to breathe, coupled with verbal protest from onlookers, the said officer was unmoved.
On being taken to the Hennepin County Medical Center, Floyd was pronounced dead. After Floyd’s death, violent protests have broken out in several US cities. In a viral video, Urooj Rahman was seen throwing a lit Bud light beer bottle filled with gasoline into the broken window of a police car.
Two far-left attorneys who rioted for BLM in Brooklyn have pleaded guilty to a terrorist firebomb attack. Urooj Rahman threw a firebomb into a police car, tried to distribute more firebombs to others, then fled in a getaway van driven by Colinford Mattis. https://t.co/Xei98fvqfA pic.twitter.com/gSlGs8V3iR
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 21, 2021
She was accompanied by Colinford Mattis, a graduate of Princeton University and the New York School of Law. The duo was stopped and arrested by another patrol car a few blocks away after they were caught committing the said crime.
The cops found materials to make more Molotov cocktails inside the car. The police also discovered gasoline, lighter, and bottles filled with toilet paper. In October last year, Rahman along with Colinsford pleaded guilty to her crime.
In total, she spent 28 days behind bars before posting a $2,50,000 bail. Although Rahman was initially facing up to 10 years in prison, she accepted a new plea deal that is likely to reduce her sentence to 18-24 months.
She has confessed to conspiring to commit arson and making/possessing unregistered explosives. Urooj Rahman is due to be sentenced the following month.
