Madalena McNeil Wiki – Madalena McNeil Biography

Madalena McNeil, was among four people charged Tuesday for their actions in Salt Lake City, Utah, in a July protesting a district attorney’s decision that the fatal police shot of a young man was justified. It was alleged that the demonstrators poured red paint into the prosecutor’s office, smashed the windows and hung signs calling for justice for the murdered man.

Madalena McNeil Age

She is 28 years old.

Madalena McNeil Arrest & Charge

Madalena McNeil is accused of purchasing red paint prior to the protest. Under aggressive new criminal charges, it could mean that he will spend the rest of his life in jail.
But instead of just accusing the protesters of vandalism or even riot, the same DA used a charge boost to claim they were working as a gang. Under the new charges, the demonstrators face life sentences. It is the latest in drastic measures that increase potential penalties by treating protesters as a criminal conspiracy.

“I’m not scared because I think that I did anything wrong, because I know that I didn’t,” McNeil told The Daily Beast. “But it would be very foolish of me to look at the potential for life in prison and not be scared. When I heard about that [the charges] I realized that in the eyes of the state, I had become an enemy for exercising what is supposed to be a protected right.”

More About Madalena McNeil

McNeil and a crowd estimated to include between 40 and 50 people gathered outside the DA’s office on 9 July to protest the lack of charges against a pair of police officers who shot and killed 22-year-old Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal. Palacios-Carbajal was accused of threatening with a gun in May. When the officers arrived at the scene, they fled and the officers were chased. He stumbled three times, the third time he pointed his gun at the officers who shot him 34 times.

DA Sim Gill found that the police officers were right in the shooting, but the case sparked local debates as Palacios-Carbajal’s family announced plans to sue the city.

McNeil and other protesters said that when they arrived at the DA’s office, they were met with police in riot gear. In the footage taken from the incident, the police line accuses the protesters with riot shields. McNeil, who shared the photos that he said he had bruises due to the incident, brutally accused Salt Lake City Police in the incident. Salt Lake City Police declined to comment.

Criminal Activity

In his criminal complaint, McNeil accused him of pushing one of the shielded officers and purchasing red paint that allegedly had splashed outside the prosecutors’ office by protesters. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, he and six other protesters face charges of crime and riot, often confined to a second-degree crime. (McNeil declined to comment on the details of the case.)

But the prosecutor, who was the focal point of the protesters’ anger in the first place, increased the charges by using a clause against the gangs. Under new developments that apply to “crimes committed with two or more people or in relation to a criminal street gang”, protesters could face life imprisonment if convicted.

Utah legal experts have said this is an unusual, perhaps unprecedented move in the state.

• “From what I’ve seen, as far as charges coming down the line during protests over the last couple of years, this is something that’s pretty unique and unusual for Utah,” Jason Groth, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told The Daily Beast.
• “The stated purpose of that enhancement was to get the heart and core of gangs off the streets, so social workers can work with the rest of the involved youth,” he said. “And so no matter what you think about that original purpose, it is far afield from the alleged facts in this case.”

In an interview, Gill said that she disagrees and sees the charging measure as a “group” improvement not specific to gangs and can be used in any situation where two or more people act together.

• “Unfortunately that’s how the state legislature named it, as a ‘gang’ enhancement,” he told The Daily Beast. “I call it a ‘group’ enhancement because that’s much more indicative that, factually, if you act in concert of two or more people, that is a group-enhanceable offense.”

When asked whether the two officers who shot and killed Palacios-Carbajal would be eligible for gang reinforcement if they had filed a criminal complaint, Gill said, “For the sake of argument, is there an assumption if there are cops acting together in harassment? I have a person and elements, do I charge them with a group development? Yes, absolutely if possible. ”

Groth and McNeil also questioned Gill’s potential conflict of interest, which gave penalties to protesters demonstrating against him.

Gill told The Daily Beast that the apparent double decline was due to a lack of staff, but that in the future, other prosecutors will handle the case. Groth argued that fingerprints had already changed the situation, though.

• “I think what’s problematic, especially when the case is being handed off to another prosecutor’s office, is that before that even gets to that prosecutor’s desk, [the sentencing enhancements] are already framing the case,” Groth said. “And so that discretion to charge differently, or to not use an enhancement out the gate has been taken away.”

Gill said independent prosecutors could actually handle the augmentation.

The case is one of the last cases where law enforcement took maximum action against protesters.

In 2017, prosecutors pressured anti-Trump activists who demonstrated during the president’s inauguration and allegedly damaged property. While individual allegations against the more than 120 defendants were often groundless, the state group accused the group of collectively responsible for property damage based on activities such as wearing black and walking together, accusing the group of a broad “riot conspiracy”. . The charges were sentenced to a maximum of 60 years in prison. (Except for a few cases where the defendants had early plea agreements, the defendants were either found not guilty, or their charges were dismissed after the prosecution’s case turned out to be largely based on footage of the right-wing video group Project Veritas.)

More recently, conservative lawmakers have suggested labeling the rebellion as terrorism (an already weak label, one of the critics says it could be wrongly applied to protected speech and meeting). After racial justice protests broke out at the national level this spring, a Michigan lawmaker passed a bill classifying the rebels as indigenous terrorists, calling the current 10-year sentence of riot as “slap on the wrist”.

During the recent weeks of protests in Portland, Oregon, federal officials tried to label the vandalism incidents as extremist violence, and Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf published a long list of “anarchist extremist” incidents, mostly graffiti. A new Homeland Security report leaked to The Nation revealed that the ministry is considering linking the US anti-fascist movement (not an organized group) to the Kurdish YPG fighting force. Theoretically, this move could allow federals to classify US protesters as externally linked and to conduct otherwise illegal surveillance against them.

Madalena McNeil Statement

McNeil, who is white, said he and other protesters also objected to the development of gangs because of their more common use against men of color. Life expectancy in prison is enough for some defendants, even if not guilty, to consider defense agreements, he said, adding that accepting a reduced sentence could still mean a prison sentence, loss of jobs and housing, and financial blows. He and the other defendants paid $ 50,000 bail to get out of jail (equal to the alleged damage to the prosecutor’s office) and McNeil was asked to resign from his job after his arrest.

• “There’s all of these biases and these connotations about being a thug and being a gang and getting together to commit crimes. To me, the message is, ‘Don’t think you can be near each other. If you are near someone who does something at a protest, then you could be in trouble, too,’” McNeil said.