Police Charged Her With A Hate Crime Because She "Intimidated" Them

Blue Lives Matter demonstrators
Zain Murdock
July 21, 2021

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.

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