The racist US criminal justice system in action in Michigan

Siwatu-Salama Ra & daughter

How can any criminal justice system produce such an outcome and not be universally condemned as catastrophically broken?

Siwatu-Salama Ra is a 26-year-old black mother who watched in horror as an angry assailant—a neighbor with whom Ra had a dispute—deliberately crashed her vehicle into Ra's car while Ra's two-year-old daughter was playing inside. Ra removed her unloaded, legally purchased handgun from the glove box and brandished it, scaring the neighbor off.

The assailant, Channel Harvey, was never charged. Ra was arrested for felonious assault. She is now serving a mandatory two-year-sentence, even though Michigan is a Stand Your Ground state and Ra was clearly defending her family on her own property.

Ra is pregnant, and she is expected to give birth in prison.

The entire case is a clusterfuck from start to finish.

Incidentally, for some reason, I don’t see the NRA going to bat for this law-abiding gun owner who exercised her Second Amendment right to defend herself and her family. Isn’t that what they’re all about?

(via @robbysoave; retweet by @Popehat)