You know what is hard to fake? How about hand-shaped bruises on your breast?
Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan has been sentenced to 3 months in jail and five years probation for assaulting a police officer, a charge that sparked outrage and protests earlier this month. McMillan, who said she threw her elbow up behind her instinctively after the officer groped her breast, faced up to seven years in prison for felony assault. The perceived injustice inspired multiple petitions on McMillan’s behalf and close public scrutiny — but could the 25-year-old graduate student’s case help bring attention to others like her?
Despite medical photographs of McMillan’s bruises, including a hand-shaped mark on her breast, Officer Grantley Bovell said McMillan attacked him unprovoked, and prosecutor Erin Choi said McMillan’s claims were “so utterly ridiculous and unbelievable that she might as well have said that aliens came down that night and assaulted her.” Grainy cell phone footage of the altercation makes it unclear whose version of events is accurate.
Bovell has a slew of complaints against him, including allegations that he kicked a suspect in the face while he was on the ground, slammed a man’s face into the stairs of a city bus while arresting him, and ran a motorcyclist off the road. He is also being sued by another Occupy activist for using excessive force during an arrest the same day.
It seems to me like the person who should be sentenced to three months in jail is Officer Grantley Bovell.
