Two faces of American justice
One is White, one is Black.
Dawn Bancroft was part of the insurrectionist mob that violently stormed the nation’s Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. She said she was there with the mob to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her “friggin’ brain.” She sent a video to her children showing her engaged in the violent insurrection that left five people dead, 140 police officers severely injured, and millions of dollars in property damage.
The FBI arrested Bancroft and then let her return home in Pennsylvania to be with her family pending disposition of her case.
Bancroft became one of the more than 570 people arrested in connection with the violent attack on the Capitol. As part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, she recently pled guilty in federal court to one misdemeanor count of illegally “parading, demonstrating, or picketing” in the Capitol Building.
Bancroft is one 29 Capitol riot defendants who have pled guilty through plea deals to misdemeanor charges in connection with their violent participation in the insurrection. Eight other defendants have pled guilty to felonies through plea deals as well.
The longest prison sentence handed down thus far was eight months in prison for a felony charge while five misdemeanor charges resulted in time already served in jail or placement home detention.
In accepting Bancroft’s recent plea deal, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan described the Capitol insurrectionists as law-abiding citizens who “morphed into terrorists” on January 6.
That is about one of the dumbest judicial assessments ever made in a courtroom.
The people who went to Washington, D.C. on January 6 with plans to disrupt a constitutional process of government by any means necessary, including shooting Nancy Pelosi in her “friggin’ brain” and lynching Vice-President Mike Pence, had terrorism in their hearts and minds at the outset. They left their homes and families to travel to an event they knew had been pre-planned for violence. To this day, they remain unrepentant “domestic terrorists,” despite being hailed as “patriots” by right wing lunatics.
Bancroft’s case is the face of White justice in America.
The face of Black justice can be found in the case of Dayonn Davis.
This Georgia teenager was set to graduate from high school in 2018 when he and a friend took a pair of Nike Air Jordan Fives (valued at $180) from another teenager. The friend brought a gun to the robbery without Davis’ knowledge. The friend was arrested but not charged in the incident. The weapon was not used in the taking of the tennis shoes.
The White state prosecutor took a harsh stance in plea negotiations with Davis’ attorney, saying the teenager “could have killed” the acquaintance from whom he took the tennis shoes. The prosecutor insisted that Davis plead guilty to robbery since a weapon was present when the tennis shoes were stolen.
In jail, Davis ultimately pled guilty a non-armed felony robbery charge, and a White judge sentenced the teenager to a mandatory minimum of five years in prison followed by ten years of probation. A local ACLU attorney said the “harsh” sentence received by Davis was not an “outlier” for young Black men in Georgia.
Young Davis was hauled off and placed in one of Georgia’s many violent prisons—a prison system that is currently under U.S. Department of Justice investigation for violence against inmates. 26 inmates were murdered by other inmates in Georgia prisons in 2020 and 18 have been murdered thus far this year.
That is the face of Black justice throughout America.
White adult domestic terrorists are allowed to serve their misdemeanor sentences in their homes for a violent crime that left five people dead, resulted in the suicide of four police officers, and severely injured 140 more while a Black teenager in Georgia is sent to a violent adult prison for the non-violent offense of stealing “Oreos” tennis shoes for five years.
Two faces of American justice.
That is what we see here.