Urooj Rahman holds a Molotov cocktail in the passenger seat of a van in the early-morning hours of Saturday, May 30. Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York It’s an audacious choice to pause in front of an Applebee’s restaurant on Flatbush Avenue and grant an impromptu interview to a video journalist shortly before you allegedly throw a Molotov cocktail into a police car.
Rahman answers the interviewer. “It’s understandable,” she says, not looking at Mattis, wrapping and rewrapping her scarf around her face. “This is the way that people show their anger and frustration,” she says a minute later. “Because nothing else works. Nothing else.” She remains unfailingly polite. At the conclusion of the interview, the video journalist asks her name and she tells him. And then she spells it. U-R-O-O-J.
These are people the least deserving of this kind of treatment, their friends say, people who are unfailingly kind, gentle, and decent. Rahman gave a piece of her apartment floor in Athens, Greece, where she was working during the migrant crisis, to a queer Syrian refugee in an abusive relationship; Mattis turned around on his way to vacation to sit by a friend’s hospital bed after she’d suffered a stillbirth.
For many of the young law students, the trip was galvanizing. “We were about to graduate, to become American lawyers, and the question was: How were we going to pursue this, involve the struggle in our work?” says Jordan Manalastas, who was in the program and is now a public defender for detained immigrants.
Lubell himself, who retired from teaching three years ago, is a leftist, a self-proclaimed “third-party activist — maybe less identified with the Democratic Party per se,” and in his civics-and-law class, he held mock elections “that were parliamentary. It wasn’t a winner-take-all kind of thing. We practiced ranked voting, a way of distributing power,” he remembered.
Since last summer, Rahman had been working at Bronx Legal Services, where she belonged to a team of roughly 60 lawyers representing people who want to fight eviction proceedings but can’t afford an attorney. On the Friday night before her arrest, Rahman was on a Zoom call until about 6 p.m. It was a union meeting. After a months-long hiatus, the courts had begun to schedule hearings so pending eviction cases might resume, and the defender-advocates at Bronx Legal Services objected strenuously.
A standout line is 'Rahman threw the bomb; Mattis just drove'... yeah Mattis was 'just an accomplice. No biggie.' 🙃
These are two highly educated people who chose the path of violence . This is a crime that took planing and preparation . They could have abandoned their plan at any time prior to the firebombing. Actions have consequences. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
Heckuva lot of words to justify and excuse basic terrorism. Congrats NY mag, probably your most inane piece since “has trump been a Russian asset since the 80s”
Omg so sad
They spit in the face of the country that allowed them to fulfill their dreams. I hope they throw the book at these two terrorists who believe 'only violence' can create change. Appalling article NewYorkMagazine - Whitewashing domestic terrorism.
This is a story of 2 Kool-Aid drinkers who believed they were untouchable and went way too far. The article laughably frames federal charges as some mysterious overreach but with liberal localities dropping charges against rioters across the country, it was a logical recourse.
NYM supporting terrorism I see. FakeNews
'The city was out of its collective mind that night, the Friday after the Monday George Floyd was killed.' Only the people wrecking buildings and burning cop cars and the reporters enabling them. And they're out of their minds all the time. Ridiculous.
How awful that they should actually face the consequences of their actions! What has this world come to when radical leftists are held to the same standards as everyone else?
Absolutely no respect for these 2 lawyers. They chose to throw a Molotov Cocktail and they deserved to be charged at the maximum extent possible. They should know better. Grow up & deal with the consequences. They also need to be disbarred and never practice law again.
Y’all are really trying your best to give a veneer of respectability to domestic terrorism. Into the trash you go 🗑
Seriously? Fuck them.
Article is quite arrogant. Do they deserve 45 years for their crimes? No. Should they be treated as innocent martyrs? No. Ironically, the author laments subjectivity of the legal system, while ignoring that potential sentence is a non-subjective mandatory minimum.
Thanks for this flattering portrayal of two terrorists.
free them
This article is an absolute joke. This wasn't a case of vandalism by spray painting. They knowingly ignited a destructive device. If these people were some right wing, racist yahoos, you would not be publishing this shameful faux hagiography.
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