Three protesters accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars during protests against racial inequalities in New York were indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday and face life imprisonment.
According to indictments forwarded by the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office, Samantha Shader is accused of throwing an explosive device at a police car during a demonstration on May 29, while Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman are charged for targeting another police car during a demonstration the next day.
In both cases, no one was injured.
Colinford Mattis, 32, and Urooj Rahman, 31, are lawyers by profession and have so far had a model career.
Samantha Shader, 27, had already had trouble with the justice system in several American states, according to the prosecutor.
The three demonstrators are now facing seven federal charges, including arson, possession and use of explosives and destructive devices.
Currently imprisoned, they must be formally charged by a judge on June 25, and risk, in the event of conviction for all these counts, life imprisonment, told AFP a spokesperson for the prosecutor, who is determined to deal with with the greatest firmness the demonstrators suspected of violence against the police.
The demonstrations during which the events took place, sometimes interspersed with violence, took place the first weekend after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25.
The attitude of the New York police, who sometimes charged or violently repulsed demonstrators, has been widely criticized and some officers have been subject to disciplinary sanctions.
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