19-year-old Lauren Gibson was riding with friends in Utah when an officer pulled one of them over. Upset after she saw the traffic stop turn “aggressive,” Gibson waved a “Back the Blue” sign at the officer, stepped on it, then crumpled it into the trash.
For this “intimidation,” she was arrested!
Gibson was charged with a HATE CRIME because she threw away the sign “while smirking in an intimidating manner.” Apparently that gesture made the teen a threat to Garfield County officers!
And here’s why.
Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, New Hampshire, and of course Utah include law enforcement officers as a protected category under their hate crime laws – taking “Blue Lives Matter” to the extreme.
And because the law states a hate crime is when someone has “intent to intimidate or terrorize,” Gibson’s nonviolent gesture may land her a year in prison.
Garfield Sheriff Perkins says she was “extremely aggressive and violent” – utilizing the dangerous “Angry Black Woman” stereotype. But Gibson, who herself felt “threatened” by the deputy who arrested her, disagrees. “If it was a dentist’s sign … nothing would have happened,” she argues.
Police consistently brutalize Black people – then they criminalize us when we're angry about their brutalization! This cycle will only result in more Black death. The only way to end it is to abolish this system.