*A judge in South Carolina recently ruled that a pregnant Black activist will not have her four-year prison sentence reduced for breaching the peace when she engaged in a war of words with police during racial justice protests in the summer of 2020.
Brittany Martin, 34, of Sumter, South Carolina, was found guilty of breaching the peace in a high and aggravated manner over comments she made to police, per the Associated Press.
Police body camera recordings show Martin addressing police officers during multiple days of demonstrations.
“Some of us gon’ be hurting. And some of y’all gon’ be hurting,” Martin told officers in one of the police body cam videos that was presented in court. “We ready to die for this. We tired of it. You better be ready to die for the blue. I’m ready to die for the Black,” she said, the AP reports.
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A jury this spring found Martin guilty of breaching the peace and acquitted her of inciting a riot. A verdict was reportedly not reached on whether she threatened officers’ lives.
The breaching of the peace charge is punishable by a $500 fine and a 30-day jail stint, per the AP, but prosecutors sought to charge her with a “high and aggravated” crime, which carries up to 10 years imprisonment. Martin was sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Martin’s attorneys along with racial justice groups pushed for the sentence to be reduced due to her pregnancy.
“She’s in jail because she talked in America,” said Sybil Dione Rosado, her trial attorney. “She’s a dark-skinned Black woman who is unapologetically Black and radical.”
Judge R. Kirk Griffin noted in his Oct. 5 order that Martin’s prior criminal convictions contributed to her 4-year sentence, which include “convictions across multiple states for shoplifting, public disorderly conduct, and possession of a short-barreled shotgun,” per the AP.
In November 2020, an Iowa judge sentenced her to probation for causing bodily harm after she purposely hit her teenage son with her SUV and fled the scene.
Martin has reportedly been on probation at least six times.
Civil rights attorney and former state lawmaker Bakari Sellers called the 4-year prison sentence “beyond the pale.”
“The fact is you have people who stormed the Capitol, who led to the death of law enforcement, who tried to overturn an election and fracture democracy. And they’re getting two months, three months, six months,” Sellers said, via the AP. “And Brittany Martin gets four years.”
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