In March 2012, labor activist and graduate student Cecily McMillan was charged with a felony assault on a police officer.

In August 2012, a homeless friend of mine, Beauty, was also arrested for assaulting an officer. Beauty was charged with four counts, including one of felony assault on a police officer.

McMillan was one of dozens of protesters arrested on that March night, as police attempted to clear Zuccotti Park on Occupy Wall Street’s six-month anniversary.

Beauty was one of an estimated 1,100 people arrested in New York each day, on average. In addition to the felony assault, the other charges against her were misdemeanors stemming from her work as a prostitute: disorderly conduct, prostitution and theft. (The theft charge was in connection to an iPhone stolen by her pimp. He fled the state after telling police she was the thief. )

Video evidence exists of the exact moment of contact in McMillan's case. On it, she is seen crouching, ramming an elbow into the officer’s face and then running. She maintains her innocence, and her defense argued at trial that the officer she elbowed grabbed her breast, off-camera, before she elbowed him. (One juror in her trial, notably, told The Guardian that the video "said it all".)

There is no video of the evening Beauty was arrested. She was alone, working the empty streets of the Bronx. There is no evidence of Beauty attacking an officer that evening, other than the arresting officer’s word.

Of the roughly 70 people arrested in and around Zuccotti Park that night in March 2012, only a few chose to go to trial (most pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges). McMillan, out on bail, chose a lawyer and rejected the prosecution's offer of a guilty plea in exchange for a recommendation that she should not receive a prison sentence. She documented what she said were her injuries on the internet. Her supporters launched a website and conducted a social media campaign on her behalf.

When I visited Beauty in Rikers two weeks following her arrest, she was unaware of the exact nature of the charges against her because nobody had told her. She still had bruises on her ribs (the result, she said, of police brutality) and was on suicide watch. Her bail, close to $2,000, was far too much for her. Beauty’s only family – her mother – couldn’t be contacted to help her, as she was herself incarcerated in Oklahoma. Beauty was eventually able to talk to her lawyer, a public defender, but only for a few minutes each month, in small conversations as they stood together at the courthouse, awaiting a judge’s rulings.

Unable to make bail, Beauty couldn’t spend the next two years fighting the charges against her, living her life on the outside, or rallying support via hashtags and blogs – let alone continue her job.

'I don't need more prison. Was born in one. That is enough.' Photograph: Chris Arnade Photograph: Chris Arnade

McMillan's trial concluded Monday, and she was found guilty.

Beauty spent a total of four months in Rikers before the police dropped the assault charge against her. The misdemeanor prostitution and disorderly conduct charges that remained would have normally cost her nothing more than a few nights.

McMillan's verdict generated a lot of outrage: Twitter went crazy, op-eds were produced, television appearances were booked.

Beauty simply left prison, holding the few possesions she had, and returned to the streets.

I find many of the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement to be admirable. I share the frustration of its supporters with some police tactics. But I hope they understand how fortunate they are in comparison to so many.

Although I was not there when Beauty was arrested and charged with assault, I have been present other times. On those occasions, the police did not ask Beauty to disperse before arresting her. They didn’t give her an explanation. They simply told her that she was being disorderly, handcuffed her and threw her, often violently, into a police van.

Beauty never received a trial, and spent her four months in jail with very limited access to a lawyer to help her prepare for any pending case. Nobody in the media or – on social media – took notice of her arrest. Nobody asked Beauty for an interview – and, if reporters did ask, I doubt she would understand why. Being arrested, often without reason, is sadly standard protocol for her. So is being incarcerated.

Cecily McMillan was in Zuccotti Park to fight against the power and hubris of the wealthiest 1%. That fight is a good fight. Yet outrage is often a very selective and selfish act. One can be so busy fighting the top 1% that the bottom 1% – the ones so far down that they can’t be heard– are forgotten in the din.

The Beautys of the world are the lowest 1%: those born into poverty; those living in neighborhoods where the police are an occupying force; those without recourse to lawyers and the media. They face police brutality and injustice, almost every day, but they are not seen as martyrs.

Cecily McMillan was given a trial; she was allowed to argue her side to a jury with the help of a competent lawyer with sufficient resources. She and her supporters might not agree with the outcome, but at least they had and still have some recourse and some resources.

Much of American doesn’t have even that.