If you had to pick any state in the Union where it might become commonplace to quite literally demand murderers remain free to keep murdering, you know which one it would be.
[Jen] Angel died on Thursday from injuries she suffered following a car break-in near Wells Fargo Bank in Downtown Oakland on Monday. She was dragged 50 feet by a getaway car after she tried to chase down the suspects.
"We are really trying to orient towards her brilliant life, and that actually, she is not a person who would support the policing and imprisonment of the people who harmed her," Harris said.
Family and friends say that Angel saw many instances of violence and theft as related to larger systemic issues around poverty and racism. In her passing, they are focusing on restorative justice, which they say was central to Angel's teachings.
Oh, really, "restorative justice" was "central to Jen Angel's teachings?" Well, to be blunt about it: She's dead.
Because some criminals killed her.
Whatever "restorative justice" is going to do, it's not going to restore this woman's life. It can't.
Here's how the San Francisco Chronicle describes the brutal killing:
The confrontation unfolded in a matter of moments in a parking lot near a Wells Fargo bank in Uptown Oakland. Angel was leaving her parking spot when she was cornered by a pair of thieves, who smashed her car window and ran away with her belongings, her fiance, Ocean Mottley, said. As she chased after the car, she got caught in the vehicle's door and was dragged more than 50 feet, her head smashing on the sidewalk as the car sped away.
Journalist Andy Ngo had a more accurate headline and description:
An anarchist bakery owner in Oakland, California who believes in the abolishment of law enforcement has died after sustaining severe injuries during a violent attempted robbery on Monday. Jen Angel, 48, was dragged for nearly fifty feet after struggling with two men in a vehicle who tried to steal her purse.
Some days, working on news that's too crazy to be a Babylon Bee headline is really sad.
Whatever alternative modes of "justice" Jen Angel believed in, it didn't extend to letting people steal her personal property. When the chips were down, she wasn't considering "restoring" "justice" to these criminals, she chose to directly and perhaps violently engage with them.
Tragically, she paid for it with her life (may she rest in peace). If her family wants to live by a credo that treats murderers as anything other than murderers, they are welcome to do so.
Most of us do not. Most of us want nothing to do with this:
"Feels like absolutely an opportunity to stand in her values, and support the world that she wants. By actually showing that something different than actual policing and prosecution is possible, and is how we can have accountability," Harris said.
Yes, "something different" than "actual policing and prosecution" is possible. You know what it looks like? It looks like California – e.g., an increasingly violent and lawless state where beloved local bakers are fatally dragged down city blocks by "getaway cars."
And yet the solution here is apparently not to take violent killers off the streets but to adhere to this sort of gobbledygook:
"That doesn't mean that there isn't accountability that we would want for (the perpetrators)," said Harris. "What (that) could look like isn't about putting a person into further harm … (but) understanding how we're going to prevent this from happening to the next Jen Angel."
