Sahara Dula, 24, is a New England College criminal justice graduate who wants to specialize in “crisis communication.” If so, she has a bit to learn after intentionally hitting a police officer with her Lexus and then declaring “F— these cops, it’s a lesson to him.”
A video captures Dula driving the wrong way on Park Avenue near East 71st Street around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday when an officer approaches the vehicle to turn it around. She then floored the black Lexus and hit the officer.
She was later found to be high on marijuana. She told investigators “I told the cop I wanted to go straight, and he wouldn’t move, so I hit him. I did it on purpose. F— these cops! He wouldn’t move!”
The wounded officer suffered a broken leg and extensive bruising. However, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lucy Shephard did not charge Dula with attempted murder. Instead, she will face an array of charges for first-degree attempted assault, attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer, second-degree assault, second-degree reckless endangerment and operating a vehicle while ability impaired by drugs and reckless driving.
Dula has a record of past arrests including a criminal mischief arrest in March 2022 after destroying property. The charges were dropped. She was also arrested at least twice in New Hampshire, including an arrest in 2020 for failing to stop at an intersection in the town of Henniker and striking another vehicle. She then fled the scene. She was also arrested for simple assault after an incident at Concord Hospital.
There are reports that Dula has been under treatment for mental illness, including possible bipolar illness. It is difficult for courts to balance such elements. This is a person who has gone to school and reportedly supports her mother and family while struggling with mental illness. On the other hand, she just admitted to intentionally striking down an officer.
It is not clear if the defense will argue the mental illness as a defense and argue that she was experiencing an uncontrolled episode due to medication problems. Yet, how is a judge to handle such a claim? Dula is not institutionalized due to a view that she is able to function in society. The defense could argue that the episode showed that she requires institutionalization and treatment, but that she was not in control of her actions.
A perfect example of the Law being utilized as a means to an end, not a path to Justice. A criminal with a long, dismal history of offenses, excused by the courts because of a declaration by some unknown practitioner of psychology or psychiatry? An attempt at judicial leniency, or a failure to administer the law as it was intended? What if this offense had been committed by someone without the benefit of a mental disorder? A cell, a key discarded and a long, well deserved sentence. But no. I’m sorry, but the crime should never be redefined to suit circumstances. The crime is what it is! Let it stand for all, equal and without manipulation.
We used to temporarily institutionalize (even if via prison) people ‘for their own good’, because we were mature enough to understand that was true. Doesn’t mean a person can’t rebound and change, just that in extreme cases that can require outside intervention for a protracted time. The woke way is the opposite of sense, it is the opposite of kindness or compassion, and it will never lead to real well-being, not for anyone. Woke is a toddler with a knife.
Using a motor vehicle as a deadly weapon in the intentional attempt to kill a Police Officer should have been dealt with right there on the spot….guilty as charged and sentence duly delivered.
That tried and true method serves a dual purpose….no repeat crimes by the Perp….and a strong signal to others that might be foolish enough to try the same thing that to do so comes with direct immediate repercussions.
Bi-polar, drug user, just filled with hate or simply being stupid…..the conduct is what must be proscribed and in the process prevented from recurring.
Watch what happens….all charges will be dropped in a plea bargain and the nutcase will have a chat with a Shrink who will prescribe yet more drugs and she walks free as a bird and high as a kite still…..knowing there is no penalty for violent behavior.
She needs to be institutionalized – on Riker’s Island. She has no respect for the law, life, or property.
She will probably be hired by Letitia James to prosecute Trump for overdue parking tickets. This is New York as after all.
DEI at work.
Because of the new parameters set by the left we will need to know the skin color of Mx. Dula to make a judgment in this case.
And here is where it all started and continues……
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
True, I never wanted my country to be fundamentally transformed. The Founders were wiser men than the modern Democrat party.
Obama never mentioned his plan to ‘fundamentally transform the United States of America’ during the 2008 campaign…because he knew those words would destroy his candidacy. Yes, he was indeed the Manchurian candidate
No, those words would not have destroyed his candidacy. Everyone who voted for him would have eaten it up. His core would have agreed that the USA needs radical transformation, and those who voted for him because he was the Lightbringer would have understood him to mean that he would transform it into the utopia they were imagining, in which the seas would stop rising and the glaciers stop receding and poverty and misery would melt away like a dream.
The perp and the DA are Soros’ dream come true. Turning American cities into lawless hell holes.
One would think by her display of actions she is a threat to others and society.
She needs help, seriously.
Curious as to whether her therapists/counselors are aware of her using pot. It can exacerbate any underlying psych illness. If she kept that to herself, it tends to diminish any conclusion as to the severity of her affective disorder.
There have to be some consequences for this behavior.
@whig98
If they were of a certain (and increasingly common) mindset, they probably prescribed pot. A large swath of people have the honest belief that cannabis is tantamount to a vitamin (it isn’t). The pharmaceutical stranglehold on medicine and health makes this not at all surprising. Pair that with the elimination of personal accountability and effort, et *voila*.
Throw her dumb ass in jail. Maybe that will cure her “bipolar” issues.
Apparently Fungula is excelling in the criminal side of the criminal justice course. More DEI?
if you can get a drivers license…then I don’t care what your mental “health” is…you DO YOUR TIME!
sadly Democrats have taught a WHOLE generation to HATE the Rule of Law and America!
Her linked in states she has worked as a cashier and doorman. How does she have a BA and are we paying off her student loans?
And where did the Lexus come from?
I wonder who taught her to hate cops? Could it be reverend Al? Maybe Jesse… Or maybe a professor at New England College.
Obama, Biden and the Democrat Party!
Time to end Federal aid and student loan guarantees….for colleges
Let Democrats fund their failure!
Trying hard not to be snarky.
The issue is mental illness.
Being of danger to herself and others she needs locked up.
Then the next issue is the mental illness professionals will turn her loose after a period of some time. Those proffessionals will not be accountable for their determinations.
We are kind of stuck.
What hasn’t been tried is just locking them up.
The snark
If she were in the DC area code Jan. 6 21, she would have still been in jail awaiting trial
@Iowan,
Its not mental illness.
That’s a cop out.
She was high on drugs, felt entitled to go the wrong way on the street, and the cop instead of busting her was trying to tell her to get in the right lane(s).
So she decided she was above the law.
I blame Hunter Biden.
-G
Might have been. I was coloring inside the lines. Mental illness history. Drug use yes. If that was part of the arrest, I missed it. But the law considers drug use a mitigating factor. I am willing to spend drastically more for mental wellness. Not willing to give it to govt bots. Like I said, we are kind of stuck.
The issue at bar isn’t the balancing of competing interests . . . it’s consequences for repeated criminal behavior!
And the systems failure to respond appropriately to her previous transgressions.
The issue