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Liberals Outraged by Million-Dollar Bail for Lancaster #BlackLivesMatter Rioters

Posted on | September 16, 2020 | 5 Comments

 

Actually wrote up an item for The American Spectator yesterday in which I quoted Pennsylvania’s Democratic lieutenant governor:

The $1 million bail quickly came under fire from Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and a local advocacy group, with Fetterman calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” and an infringement on the protesters’ Eighth Amendment right against excessive bail….
“It’s self-evidently unconstitutional,” Fetterman said. “Whatever the merit of the underlying charges, what is absolutely indefensible is a million dollar bail for those charges.” …
City police did not request the bail amount, said Lt. Bill Hickey, the public information officer for the bureau. The District Attorney’s office did not provide any input regarding bail, spokesperson Brett Hambright said in an email.
The protesters are charged with several felony offenses, which are considered in the judge’s equation when deciding bail, as well as the input of police.
“The crimes that these defendants are facing include serious felony offenses,” Hickey said in an email. “This is not a new or unheard of practice and falls within the rules of criminal procedure.”

What I did not expect was that liberals everywhere — who have lately been trying to avoid the suspicion that they’re pro-riot, because that might not be good for Joe Biden’s campaign — would join in the outrage over this. Guess which rioter is getting the most media sympathy?

The father of Kathryn Patterson, 20, an undergraduate student at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, said she was acting as a medic, as she has at other protests in the recent past.
Chip Patterson called Kathryn Patterson’s $1 million bail, set by a magisterial district justice, “obscene.”
“Everything that I know so far, which is not a lot, indicates that Kat is not guilty of those charges. But then again, we’ll have to wait and see,” said Chip Patterson, who lives in Mercersburg, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Lancaster.
He said he has not been able to reach his daughter since her arrest.
“I cannot tell you how long this night has been,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “I think regardless of what these people did or didn’t do, the bail amount is just outrageous and clearly against the Eighth Amendment,” which addresses bail.

Unless I am mistaken, this is the same Chip Patterson who is the head of the English department at prestigious Mercersburg Academy. Perhaps it’s not considered scandalous among the faculty there for a kid to grow up to become a Marxist revolutionary, but Ms. Patterson’s dad seems rather eager to avoid that implication of his daughter’s arrest. Oh, she was merely acting in a humanitarian role as a “medic” to tend the wounds of injured protesters — the Florence Nightingale of Antifa, as it were.

Meanwhile, the president of Franklin & Marshall College, Barbara Altmann, issued a statement via her Instagram page:

Dear Students:
Our community is hurting. We are all processing and trying to contextualize the death of Ricardo Mun?oz in Lancaster city this past weekend. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this investigation, we all mourn the loss of the life of Mr. Mun?oz. For many, this is a reminder of the deeply challenged relationship between BIPOC and law enforcement. We are shaken as a campus and city. We find ourselves asking questions and trying to understand the moment. These are questions we all should grapple with.
On a community-level, we are also processing the impact that the past few nights of activism have had on a member of our own family. As you are likely aware, F&M student Kat Patterson was arrested Sunday night at the protests. We have read the allegations against her, as reported in the LNP. We stand by our students’ constitutional right to protest. And affirm a presumption of innocence. Senior staff has been in close contact with the family and will continue to do so as we focus on her well-being. Thank you, students, for creating a GoFundMe page to assist Kat and her family; many of us in our community will be contributing.
F&M’s senior staff will continue to work with students, faculty and professional staff, on campus and studying remotely, to support and encourage programs, courses and workshops on these social justice issues. We recognize that many are feeling unsafe, including within our own community. This must change. We encourage everyone to be part of this effort and support one another. We have all been heartened by the persistent and dedicated activism demonstrated by our community, especially by you — our students. Thank you for that. Together, we know we will persevere to a better tomorrow.

Let us assume that the Lancaster police had reasons to arrest Ms. Patterson and charge her with multiple felonies. While I suppose it is possible that this was a case of mistaken identity or something, isn’t it more likely that the cops have video evidence of which “mostly peaceful protesters” engaged in felonious acts of vandalism and arson? We cannot rule out the possibility that the cops just started grabbing whatever anarchist scumbags they could catch, more or less randomly, and that thus the Florence Nightingale of Antifa was mistakenly arrested. But this is 2020, and even in a small town like Lancaster, cops have access to digital surveillance technology that would enable them to prove which particular scumbags committed which specific crimes. Therefore, if cops arrested Ms. Patterson, chances are pretty good they can prove she was doing more than handing out bandaids to injured protesters.

However, we must “affirm the presumption of innocence,” as Barbara Altmann says, which I suppose also should be extended to Ms. Patterson’s personal life, no matter what our common-sense hunch might be. For some reason, commenters yesterday kept suggesting that Ms. Patterson is a fan of British television programs, IYKWIMAITYD.




 

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

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5 Responses to “Liberals Outraged by Million-Dollar Bail for Lancaster #BlackLivesMatter Rioters”

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    […] Robert Stacy McCain noted just what you’d expect: the left are up in arms that Magisterial District Judge Bruce A. Roth set a very high bail amount, $1,000,000, for Miss Patterson and most of fellow defendants. Perhaps the judge was aware of just what it costs to attend Franklin and Marshall — $75,801 per year, including room and board — and figured a lesser bail would be nothing at all to a poor little rich girl. Other defendants received the same bail, but surprise, surprise, surprise, all of the media attention is on the Cute Little White Girl. […]

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