Maile Hampton charged for trying to stop the arrest of a protester by grabbing him away from police, defined as ‘lynching’ under California state law

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A young African American activist is facing up to four years in prison on a charge of lynching after being accused of trying to stop the arrest of a fellow protester by grabbing him away from police during a demonstration against police brutality.



The case has prompted grassroots groups and politicians to call for a change in the law in California to separate the kind of incident involving Maile Hampton from a crime that has traditionally been linked to the racially motivated ritual murders of African Americans.

Hampton, 20, will stand before a judge in Sacramento on 9 April to answer a charge of lynching in a case that has sparked protests in city hall and outside the superior court.

“It’s an irony that a woman of colour who was at a public rally to shine a light on police brutality is arrested for lynching,” Linda Parisi, Hampton’s lawyer, told the Guardian.

The crime of lynching is typically associated with civil rights era murders but in the US goes back to the 18th century and has also been used to charge vigilantes, typically a white mob, trying to snatch a black person from police custody in order to deliver their own form of unauthorised punishment.

“It was designed to protect primarily people of colour from vigilante justice,” Parisi said.

Hampton took part in a demonstration in January organised to oppose a pro-police rally that was being held at the California state capitol in Sacramento.

A scuffle broke out as police accused people in a crowd that included Maile of blocking a roadway, with the confrontation apparently captured on video.

Last month, following an investigation by the Sacramento police department, Maile was arrested, taken into custody and later released on $100,000 bail, having been charged with lynching.

Parisi said the charge is a felony with a maximum punishment of four years in prison; a more usual charge in a situation like this, such as resisting arrest, would be a misdemeanour.

The mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, is talking to legislators about trying to change the criminal code.

“I was shocked to learn that in California, removing someone from police custody is defined as ‘lynching’. This word has a long and painful history in our nation and it needed to be immediately removed from California law,” he said in a statement to the Sacramento Bee.

A group of demonstrators at a pro-migrant rally organised to oppose an anti-immigration rally in Murrieta in southern California last year were also charged with lynching.

“In my 30 or so years as a lawyer I have not heard of this criminal code being used in this context in modern history until very recently,” Parisi said.

• This article was amended on 19 March 2015. An earlier version misnamed Kevin Johnson as Kevin Jackson.