Sacramento, CA–

Fresno activist and FPM team member Debbie Manning is facing misdemeanor charges for her role in a counter-protest during a pro-cop rally at the California State Capitol on January 18th of this year.  Debbie is charged with disobeying a lawful order.

During the march, police told protesters to leave the roadway.  What ensued afterwards went viral on the internet after video footage was posted to social media.  Last month, the arrest of Sacramento activist Maile Hampton for felony “lynching” during the same protest made international headlines.

In the beginning of the video below, you can see Debbie move to the median moments before she is grabbed by a police officer, which ironically makes her one of the few people there who were not in violation of “lawful orders“.

Sacramento police aggressively repressed the protest, even going so far as to not allow the demonstrators to walk on the public sidewalk across the street from the Capitol.  Now, they’re charging a young black woman with “lynching” (a law originally intended for white mobs that would remove black people from police custody and hang them); and pressing charges against another woman who doesn’t have a criminal record, for walking in the road, during a free speech demonstration, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, protesting racism.

It’s hard to imagine the response could be any more absurd.  Unfortunately, officials in Sacramento don’t seem to see the bigger picture and insist on perpetuating the very behavior that warrants further protest.