We previously discussed the arrest of Samantha Shader, 27, and her sister, Darian, 21, in one of the Molotov cocktail attacks on police in New York City. There is now a twist where a third individual is being charged as an accomplice. Samantha Shader reportedly blamed a black male for giving her the explosive. The FBI however has alleged that the accomplice was a friend from upstate New York who is white. At issue is a Bulleit whiskey bottle that Samantha Shader is accused of throwing at a police van on May 30th. The allegations against three African Americans by a self-described social justice activist is a rather unexpected twist in an already bizarre case. It could present an difficult issue for the defense in pre-trial admissibility challenges.
Shader’s guilt is not in doubt given pictures of her lighting the bottle (which failed to explode on contact). The filings recount how a witness described “a glass Bulleit bourbon whiskey bottle” that “Samantha Shader use[d] as a vessel for the Molotov cocktail that she threw at the NYPD vehicle.” She gave detailed descriptions of three African Americans who gave her the Molotov cocktail as a “thicker guy” with hair in “skinny dreads” of different colors, a second smaller man wearing a hat, and a thin woman with “poofy” hair in a ponytail. Shader admits to throwing the explosive but said that she felt pressure from the three black protesters that she should take it “because she was the only white person in the area.”
The FBI alleges however that, when the searcher her car, they found bottles with a note with the fingerprints Amerman. The note says “I found a few more glass bottles Than I thought I had, Though still not many. Wish I had more,” he wrote. “BE SAFE Please. Really[.] Good Luck, – Love Tim.”
The note captures the conflicted mindset of allegedly supplying bottles for Molotov throwing with a wish to “be safe.” The FBI has detailed extreme social media commentary from both Shader and Amerman. Three days before the attack, Amerman posted “Riots DO work,” and called cops “Tax collectors with guns. Wife beaters. Murderers.” He noted that he wanted to go on the “ride to NYC to get saucy,” but “I kitted out some others.”
For her part, Shader declared “Black people should be allowed to burn down the country they built for Free.” Yet, she allegedly blamed black people for the Molotov cocktail used in her crime.
Amerman will face charges of conspiracy to commit civil disorder. Shader is facing more serious charges that allow for a life in prison sentence.
In an already difficult criminal case, the implication of black people in the crime could have a major prejudicial impact on a jury for Shader. However, as a statement to police, it would be admissible so long as there is no constitutional violation. Assuming that Shader was appropriately read her rights, the statement could be cited as her effort to shift blame. However, it is most useful in poisoning a jury in how it views Shader. The problem is that, even if the statement were held as inadmissible in an in limine motion, it could still interfere with the ability of Shader to take the stand. Even inadmissible evidence can sometimes be used for impeachment or rebuttal. Thus, if Shader were to argue that she was motivated by her commitment to racial justice, prosecutors could argue that her false allegations against three African-Americans is relevant rebuttal evidence.
As for Amerman, he now appears to have admitted to supplying the bottles but it does not sound like he built the devices but may have only supplied the bottles. Yet, it is hard to imagine what a collection of bottles would be used for beyond Molotov cocktails beyond transporting empty bottles from upstate New York to be thrown in New York City. Moreover, the FBI references messages to “go down to the City to cause some hell.”
Amerman could be in an excellent position for a deal. He has no prior criminal history. If he gives incriminating evidence against Shader, it could show a long premeditation and planning element that would justify a longer sentence. He has an incentive to deal with there is the ability for prosecutors to seek up to ten years on one count of civil disorder and one count of civil disorder conspiracy. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
One approach is to separate the acts of arson, destruction, and looting from any concept of mitigating circumstances of protesting or demonstrating. Protesting and demonstrating are, in this instance, noble and necessary acts. This has been proven throughout history. Arson, destruction, assault, looting, etc. are criminal acts that should be addressed as such. She threw a weapon at a police officer, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, etc. Let the defense lawyer argue temporary insanity or something else from their bag of mumbo jumbo. But; demonstrating or protesting should not be connected in defending the alleged criminal. There are two crimes here: the criminal act itself and using the protesting or demonstrating as a vehicle to perform the criminal act. There’s a lot of the second thing going on in various ways, in all facets of society. For the protection of society and society’s freedoms, she should get serious slammer time.
Thank you Professor Turley for giving these punks helpful tips to prepare their defense.
He is analyzing the case as an academic exercise and I appreciate it. This could also help the prosecution prepare. It is always better to anticipate what the opposition wants to do and what they can do. Wants and capabilities are different. I like seeing possible defenses although I hope these vicious creeps go behind bars for a long time.
A few years back a woman claimed a black guy hijacked her car with her 2 children in it. As it turned out she drove the car with the 2 children in it into a lake. There was no black man.
Her name was Susan Smith. IIRC, it happened in 1991 or thereabouts. Shortly thereafter, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a column for Time magazine making excuses for her and distributing blame to various and sundry approved scapegoats. I never cared much for Ehrenreich, but it was that column that persuaded me she’s one of the world’s truly repulsive people. She’s had at least four appearances on Charlie Rose in the intervening years. If PBS doesn’t do it, who will?
Make sure your in a comfortable body state, maybe like a beach pose.
You’re***
This guy is hilarious, bring a mat, the ground is too hard.
This guy is awesome! The chain of supervisors…OMG.
Karen S – sadly, he is right. 😉
Hi Karen S – Glad to see you are back.
how preposterous this country is becoming right before our eyes
I’ve yet to locate any trace of these two having wage employment. There is a Shader family in the Hudson – Catskill area and they appear to be the children of one of the late middle aged among that set. They appear to have been living on West Main Street in Catskill. There is an Amy Shader (age 48) who operates a day care center on West Main Street there. Note, that’s not a glam part of the world.
Keep working on it. It’s an excellent use of your time. Such an important quest.
Anonymous:
Says the perpetually intellectually uncurious. Yes it’s a mark of stupidity.
Ah, the great thinkers (/sarc) and champions of freedom of speech are deleting comments, again, I see.
Hypocrites, to be sure.
The mesbloviator’s gotta bloviate…
Why waste tax buyer money the evidence is there. if black wouldn’t have a chance God is taking care of his children
here’s ihlan omar demanding that we “dismantle the whole system of oppression” by which she seems to indicate, our whole economy and political systems
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/1280562421040656395?s=20
does she use the word, “dismantle” as a euphemism for something more dramatic? perhaps. I disagree but i am a nobody, unlike the powerful representative Omar from Minnesota
And perhaps when forces “dismantle the system” the dogs of war are going to run where they will. & maybe such like as these are “dismantled” first
Being a fraudster and obnoxious political sectary is a job Americans just won’t do.
It is horrifying to think these people wanted to burn cops, perhaps to death. They should all be required to tour a burn unit.
It is the height of irony for her to blame black men. Maybe she should look in the mirror to learn about the problems in the world.
As for slaves building the country for free…slavery was global, ubiquitous, and has existed since the dawn of mankind. Native Americans had been cut off from the rest of human civilization for thousands of years, yet they practiced slavery. Slave labor built much of the world. See Exhibit A: The Pyramids. Exhibit B: Aesop’s Fables. Exhibit C-ZZZ any building from antiquity. Rather than having a civilization like the Pharaohs, in which much of the difficult work was done by slaves, a heck of a lot of hard, backbreaking work was also done by free men and women. They went into completely unpopulated areas, and had to hurry to build a cabin before winter, put food by, plow their fields, hunt, fish, trap, harvest wool or flax, weave, make dye, knit or sew all their clothes, patch their clothes, boil clothes clean, tan leather, make harness, shoe their own horses, make lye soap, make tallow candles, raise and slaughter livestock, milk the cows at the crack of dawn and again at the end of the day, churn better, make a spring house, dig a root cellar, and try to keep a dirt floor cabin relatively clean until they could quarry slate for a floor. They worked til they died. And that’s in the frontier. Life in a factory was hard, dirty, and chewed people up.
People who had never owned a slave in their lives died or were maimed in a civil war that divided friends and family, to save them. Innocent people paid in blood so that the United States would be one of the earliest countries to abolish this evil institution. I certainly wish we evolved to that point sooner, without bloodshed, and without the march to the sea. But the thought that we owe more than all the lives lost or ruined is unjust.
Meanwhile, slavery still exists on the African continent.
To be more accurate, America’s terrible past with slavery should be explained as a global phenomenon, and that we evolved past it relatively early compared with the rest of the world. Any classroom syllabus should also include the fact that African tribes long kept slaves, sold them to European traders, and profited from it to the point that they began to hunt rival tribesmen and women for gain. European slave traders, for the most part, did not push into the African continent.
And yet, our brother and sister Americans value their African ancestry over their American roots. Many identify with the Muslim religion, even though the Barbary pirates were prolific, and the Muslim slave trade took more African slaves than Europeans ever did. Meanwhile, Abolitionists were usually Christian.
We are Americans, bound together because we all belong to this country. Some of our ancestors were shipped here as convicts, slaves, indentured servants, forced into arranged marriages, sold into marriage or servitude by their own relatives, forced by the Potato Famine…Nature is cruel and heartless, and homo sapiens evolved in nature under just as cruel pressure as any other mammal. The list of wrongs that our species has done each other over millennia is extensive. No one alive today is responsible for what those alive hundreds of years ago, as the product of their own times. I would no more blame anyone in Africa for their ancestors capturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and selling people to Europeans or Americans, any more than I would blame any American today because their ancestors lived in a country where slavery was legal, just like everywhere else on planet Earth.
Stop living in the past, and thinking we can right the wrongs of antiquity.
Well said, Karen!
If it were well said, it would be 1/3 as long.
“Nature is cruel and heartless, and homo sapiens evolved in nature under just as cruel pressure as any other mammal. ” karen, i liked that part.
here’s a song lyric you won’t catch on the radio:
“force governs all organic life,
inspires all right and wrong;
it’s nature’s plan, to weed out man,
and test who are the strong”
Brava!
Stop living in the past, and thinking we can right the wrongs of antiquity.
******
They could speak out against Muslim slavery in Africa and other places being practiced today, but they won’t. No money in it.
Glass Bottles Matter!
This is the face of ANTIFA/BLM who want to destabilize the United States of America and fundamentally change America. If this moron was asked who Joe Stalin was she’d probably say the lead singer of an alternative rock group.
I’m rather disappointed that the FBI hasn’t made more meaningful arrests to put fear in the minds of these dopes. The FBI went on a crusade with “Russia Russia Russia” Gods knows how much money was wasted. Now we have a genuine threat to our nation and all they have is Miss Lushwell. Each weekend it’s chaos and murder in the Democrat cities and the Dems just fix blame and not fix the problem.
Where’s Spartacus?
BLM has one goal above any/all others: to elect Demonrats, period. Click on the BLM “donate” button: straight to DNC HQ.
Molotov crock tale
Amerman could also be a position to be made an example of.
“Nature abhors a vacuum.”
– Aristotle
________
Her progenitors and lineage ignored her and left a vacuum to be filled by dissimilar adversarial entities.
I’m not up on today’s slang. What does “I kitted out some others.” mean?
FFS – Kitted out means fixed up or dressed..
I think he’s referring to have prepared additional Molotov cocktails. He said he had more glass bottles than he initially thought, and was passing the extras on to her. The FBI should check his cell phone location to see where he was during that time period.
I don’t think it’s new slang; more likely a regionalism. It derives from “kit bags” which were small green toiletry bags issued by the Army beginning in WWI or II. So to get “kitted up” means to shower, shave and get cleaned-up. “Kitted out” is dressed up or fixed up. If someone kitted out his apt, for example, perhaps he bought a new t.v. and some furniture or decor.
O you know.
Equipped or Provided.
Yes
It’s so hard to look these things up…and it takes forever…
“Kit Out/up – Merriam-Websterwww.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › kit out › up
“Definition of kit out/up. British. : to give (someone or something) the clothing or equipment needed for a particular activity The team was kitted out in new uniforms …”
Perhaps in her twisted mind, having a molotov supplied by a black person is legally excusable…
WGAF
The entire left political spectrum has lost its grasp on reality and politicians who do not condemn any of this only enable. Of course there are going to be conflicting stories because none of this has a ring of truth to it and that is the leverage that any accused is going to use.
Criminal masterminds, both of them. Social media, fingerprints, incriminating notes. They should have just texted their glamorous mug shots with attached confessions to the police.
And she had no plan for what to do if caught – such as, exercise her right to remain silent! So yes, there was no real thought process beyond seizing the opportunity to engage in mayhem.
Duh! Of course she would say that. I mean, take responsibility?
Over the last seven years she’s been hit with at least three previous sets of criminal charges – drugs and assault. She’s been an abiding problem and has been corrupting her younger sister. The parents just have to stand back while she faces the music. Misery may persuade her where reason could not.
Crazy Antifa.
There’s been no documented proof of arson, destruction of property, looting, assault, etc connected to Antifa. You wouldn’t be a right wing extremist, would you?
I’m thinking. I’m thinking.
🙂
What a shame. That’s a waste of a decent bottle of Bulleit whiskey. What is this world coming to?
Only the bottle; they probably drank the whiskey first.